Jammu, May 28: The 2 day of the Annual Review Meeting of AICRP Weed Management was organized at SKUAST-Jammu by ICAR-Directorate of Weed Research (DWR), Jabalpur in collaboration with SKUAST-Jammu at SKUAST-Jammu, main campus, Chatha. The concluding session of the Review Meeting was graced by Dr. R.K. Samnotra, Director Research, SKUAST-J as Chief Guest and Dr. J. S. Mishra, Director, Directorate of Weed Research, Jabalpur as the Guest of Honour.
Eminent expert, Dr N N Angiras, Retd Professor, CSKHPKV, Palampur, Dr. R. P. Dubey, Incharge- AICRP, DWR, Jabalpur and Dr. B. R. Bazaya, organizing Secretary and PI, AICRP-WM, SKUAST-Jammu were present on the Dais during the session.
The meeting was attended by more than 75 weed scientists from all over the country. Dr. R.K. Samnotra, the Chief Guest called for framing a comprehensive weed policy for location-specific weeds and their management suiting the needs of line departments and farmers of the region as well as at the national level.
“The weeds cause huge losses in crop yields and cause ill effects on human and animal health. This needs to be managed effectively to save huge losses. Problems of herbicide resistance need to be addressed on priority nationally as new herbicide development is a lengthy process and takes at least a decade of research for the development of new molecules,” he suggested.
He maintained that in view of labour shortage new technologies like herbicide application through drones need to be standardized and popularized. Location-specific weed management strategies for fields, vegetable crops, and fruit crops need to be devised for different agroecosystems and must be popularized for the benefit of farmers.
Dr. J.S. Mishra, Director, DWR, Jabalpur and guest of honour of the occasion briefly highlighted that the weed seed museum will be established at ICAR-DWR, Jabalpur and he also requested to provide seed of different weed species from the respective weed management centres. He emphasised publishing in good-impact journals. He talked about the best centre award, saying there will be no best centre award given by the directorate from this year. Now the centres will be judged on the basis of performance. At the last, he congratulated all centres for their effort and work in weed management.
Eminent expert Dr. N. N. Angiras, Retd. Professor, CSKHPKV, Palampur highlighted the benefits of long-term experiments on weed management to estimate the herbicide residue in the soil. He emphasized the importance of weed survey and surveillance and suggested adding it to the technical programme of weed management. The impact assistance in terms of monetary returns of recommended weed management should be part of the weed research programme, he added. The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by Dr. B.R. Bazaya, PI, AICRP (WM), Chatha and organizing secretary of the meeting.
