India

Abstract

India is a large country sustaining on its agriculture over 600 million people or about one seventh of the world’s entire human population. Despite rapid industrialization, expansion of metropolitan cities, migration of rural populace to towns and cities, still about 80% of the people live in villages participating directly or indirectly in agricultural activities. Agricultural operations have been in vogue in almost all parts of the country since time immemorial, however, mechanisation, use of chemicals (fertilizers) and irrigation technology have come to play their roles only in very recent years. Importance of weeding out (mostly manually) of undesirable plants form croplands has been realised in recent decades when the incresase in the rate of crop production has to be matched with the currently rapidly rising human population. Weeds are almost always present within the fields in different proportions depending upon the combination of prevailing ecological factors, both biotic and abiotic. Their ecological behaviour can be best understood if we discuss briefly the climatic and edaphic conditions, seasonality, agricultural practices and the type of agricultural crops that are raised in India.