Question

What are the weeds? Name two common weeds found in India.

Answer 1

Hint: There are certain plants that grow in the agricultural field along with crops and create competition for nutrition, water etc and are harmful to the main crop.

Complete answer:
A weed is an unwanted plant that grows in the agricultural field and extracts the nutrients which are essential for the main crops. These plants are harmful as they are not required in the field.
Two common weeds found in India are Amaranthus and Chenopodium.

Additional Information: The term ‘weed’ has no botanical significance because a plant that is a weed in one context is not a weed when growing in a situation where it is needed. A plant that is a valuable crop plant in one place will be unwanted in another place.
Weed control is very important in agriculture. Methods that are commonly used in the process of weed control are hand cultivation with hoes, powered cultivation with cultivators, smothering with mulch or soil solarization, lethal wilting with high thermal, burning of them, or attack with chemical herbicides.
There are mainly three ways to remove weeds from a crop field:
-Hand method: Walking through the field and pulling out the weeds.
-Mechanical method: By pulling the iron through the sector which will till the space between the crop rows and cut or kill the weeds present within the field.
-Chemical Method: Using a herbicide to kill the weeds commonly called Weedicide.

Note: Weed is the general term used for any plant growing where it is unwanted. Weedicides are chemicals used by farmers for removing plants. Example: 2,4-d ethyl ester, neem extract, and these weedicides do not show any effect on crop plants.