Weed stress in plants

Abstract

Few plant species utilize available natural resources more efficiently as compared to other species in order to establish themselves in prevailing environmental conditions. Once established in early phase of growth, they can be sustained throughout the growing season by virtue of better stand. And this is the strategy behind the success of most of the notorious weeds in any cropping system. They, hence, continue to cause huge yield losses despite every effort made by farmers to manage them. Herbicides are largely used to manage weeds globally, but its application is also known to cause stress, though minimal, in crop plants. Another factor which contributes to the success of weeds is their hardiness and resilience to abiotic and biotic stress factors. Molecular mechanism(s) responsible for traits like competitiveness and invasiveness of weeds is poorly understood till date. However, development and availability of sophisticated molecular tools pave the way to dissect the mechanism of weed dominance. Competitiveness and tolerance to stress factors are important traits observed among different weed species that can be exploited in attempts to develop crop plants tolerant to abiotic/biotic stress(es). The need of the hour is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying weed competitiveness over crop plants in field and to utilize the responsible gene(s) by transferring them into crop plants. However, success of such approaches depends upon integration and collaboration to bring expertise together from weed science, molecular biology, and plant physiology. An effort has been made to review the traits available among weed species that make them competitive and hardy.