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Use of Herbicide and Its Implications Under No-Till Farming: An Overview

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Abstract

No-till farming is an age-old practice followed thousands of years ago, with the primitive farmers who used to make a hole in the soil and put seeds into it and then cover the seeds. During the year 1999, no-till farming was adopted on 45 million ha worldwide, which extended to 72 million ha in 2003 and to 157 million ha in 2013–2014. No-till farming paves the way for optimizing productivity and ecosystem services. It also has economic, environmental, and social benefits to the producer as well as to the society. Adoption of no-till farming also enables agriculture to respond to some of the global challenges that are associated with climate change and land and environment degradation, thereby increasing the cost of food, energy, and production inputs. In order to recognize no-till farming as a truly sustainable system, we have to ensure that it is being adopted in areas where it is currently low in practice. No-till or zero-tillage technology may be the possible substitute as this method reduces weed density and depress weeds growth. Also, there is reduction in production costs by saving water, energy, labor, and farm machinery and improving production while conserving natural resources and ensuring environmental safety. The global scenario also shows that no-till farming cannot be any more thought as a craze and non-sustainable but the system has established itself as a farming practice. Currently, sustainable agroecosystem management is gaining importance, and it can no more be neglected or ignored by scientists, extension workers, farmers, etc. While practicing no-till farming, it is inevitable that we need to apply herbicide rationally to control weeds. In India being an agrarian country, more than 50% of people are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Estimations clearly indicate that the annual crop losses could double without the use of crop production products. So we need to rely on agrochemicals, and they are the key inputs in agriculture for crop protection and better yield. The latest annual report (2017–2018) released by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals has declared that the production capacity of agrochemical players in India is around 292 (000′ MT). In the current financial year, the production has risen by 2.9%. India’s agrochemical consumption is one of the lowest in the world with per-hectare consumption being just 0.6 kg. However, the use of herbicides has been increasing due to shortages of farm labor and concerns about the affordability of labor costs. The aforementioned reasons have been the primary drivers for the growing popularity of agrochemicals and herbicides, which is expected to emerge as a key growth segment. However, continuous use of herbicides for a prolonged period creates herbicide resistance and dominance of particular weed species or changes in weed flora to a greater extent. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to crystallize the information on the use of herbicides and its implications under no-till farming.

Keywords

  • No-till farming
  • Conservation agriculture
  • Herbicides in no-till farming

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Maheswari, S.T. (2021). Use of Herbicide and Its Implications Under No-Till Farming: An Overview. In: Jayaraman, S., Dalal, R.C., Patra, A.K., Chaudhari, S.K. (eds) Conservation Agriculture: A Sustainable Approach for Soil Health and Food Security . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0827-8_21

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