Elsevier

Crop Protection

Volume 144, June 2021, 105581
Crop Protection

Characterization of herbicide use and factors responsible for herbicide resistance in Phalaris minor in wheat in Haryana, India

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2021.105581Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Faulty spray techniques liable for suboptimal herbicide efficacy and selectivity.

  • Farmers are applying multiple-dose (2.93 X) and multiple sprays (1.86 X).

  • Farmers shifting towards sequential or tank-mix applications of herbicide.

  • The cost of cultivation of wheat growers in IGP raised by ten percent.

  • Monocropping, high use of urea, residue burning, and basmati rice are culprit factor.

Abstract

This study aims to characterize herbicide use and identify the factors responsible for herbicide resistance in Phalaris minor Retz. in wheat in Haryana, India. The pre-tested questionnaire-based survey was conducted involving 300 farmers during Rabi (winter) 2017-18 covering five districts (Yamuna Nagar, Kaithal, Karnal, Fatehabad, and Rohtak) of Haryana. Binary logistic regression analysis established that besides consistent use of herbicides primarily with a similar mode of action; cultural variables are significantly determining the probability of facing herbicide resistance viz. crop rotation, field capacity on time (<14 days), time of first irrigation (<24 days), and zero-till sowing contributed negatively to the herbicide resistance. In contrast, intensive rice-wheat cropping system (>30-years of practice) and rotavator use for wheat sowing contributed positively. The study revealed that farmers at some locations applied 3–4 times the recommended dose (X) of herbicides and ended up with unsatisfactory control (~70%). Clodinafop, though it did not provide satisfactory results, contributed to about 50% of herbicide use in wheat in Haryana while; sulfosulfuron and pinoxaden share 20% each and mesosulfuron + iodosulfuron (ready-mix) shares <5%. Recently, farmers have started using pendimethalin (750–1000 g a.i. ha-1) as pre-emergence and metribuzin (50–140 g a.i. ha-1) as post-emergence tank-mix with already recommended herbicides to get desirable control. More than 90% of farmers used 225–300 L water ha−1 (standard 500 L ha−1) and used flood jet or hollow cone nozzles (recommended flat-fan) and, most farmers (75%) adopted delayed application (standard 30–35 days), resulted in reduced herbicide efficacy. Farmers' perception analysis indicates that half of the farmers felt poor quality herbicides as the prime reason for ineffectiveness. Simultaneously, the rest believed that mono-cropping, higher use of nitrogenous fertilizer, and under/over-dose of herbicides contributed to the evolution of resistance. The study revealed an increase in the cost of cultivation by 6.6% to manage P. minor in wheat, and an extra amount of around US$ 38 million was spent annually by farmers in the rice-wheat cropping system of Haryana.

Introduction

Herbicide resistance in Phalaris minor Retz. (little seed canary grass) in wheat is the major sustainability issue, which puts the rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS) in north-western Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) under serious threat. It is an associated weed of RWCS because of high surface moisture, high use of inputs (mainly nitrogenous fertilizers), and a fixed time table of emergence, growth, and development (Yadav and Malik, 2005). Other than the morphological similarity, seed shedding behavior (matures earlier than crop and sheds seeds), nonsynchronous maturity, and germination in multiple flushes make it a cumbersome weed to manage in wheat (Rana and Rana, 2015). With the introduction of short-statured high yielding wheat varieties, which are less competitive than traditional long-statured varieties, management of weeds, especially P. minor became a big issue for farmers in IGP. To tackle it, farmers started using herbicide isoproturon in the 1980s. Due to over-dependence on a single herbicide for a more extended period coupled with mono-cropping, it evolved resistance against isoproturon in 1992-93, the first instance of herbicide resistance in India (Malik and Singh, 1995). By 1993, the resistance affected area reached up to 0.8–1.0 million hectares in north-western India; the highest affected was Haryana (0.56–0.6 m ha), followed by Punjab (0.3 m ha) (Franke, 2002). During the nineties, farmers forced to cut their immature crops as fodders due to field overcrowded by P. minor (1500–2000 plants m−2), as wheat yields could be reduced up to 30% by 150 plants m−2 (Malik and Singh, 1995).

To deal with resistance in P. minor, four alternate herbicides viz. clodinafop, sulfosulfuron, tralkoxydim, and fenoxaprop were brought in recommendation during 1997-98 (Yadav and Malik, 2005). These herbicides also lost efficacy within 10–15 years resulting in farmers doubling the rate of application with repeated spray to get desirable control (Bhullar et al., 2014). Now, it is confirmed and well-established that P. minor evolved multiple herbicide resistance against prevailing herbicides, by three modes of action viz. photosynthesis at the photosystem II site A, acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase), and acetolactate synthase inhibition (Chhokar et al., 2008; Yadav et al., 2016; Punia et al., 2017). Many field surveys were conducted to know the patterns of spray technique and herbicide use against resistant P. minor, but these were random and inconclusive (Yadav et al., 2006; Punia et al., 2013; Bhullar et al., 2014). Most of the studies conducted so far were oriented to quantify the dose required to eradicate or manage the weed based on lab, pot, or field experiments. But the identification of factors determining the probability of herbicide resistance was not covered systematically. Therefore, the present farmer participatory study was made to elucidate the herbicide use along with factors accountable for multiple herbicide resistance in P. minor in wheat under RWCS.

Section snippets

Study area

A systematic household survey was conducted during the Rabi (winter) season of 2017-18 (end of January to February 2018) in five districts (Yamuna Nagar, Kaithal, Karnal, Fatehabad, and Rohtak) of Haryana state (lies between 28°39′35.1″- 30°29′06.8″ N to 75°13′56.6″- 77°36′11.1″ E) of India. Districts were selected purposively, two belonging to intensive RWCS (Karnal and Kaithal) representing typical resistance prone areas in the center, and three districts with lesser intensive RWCS along with

Factors determining the probabilities of herbicide resistance in P. minor

Hosmer and Lemeshow Test value (Chi-Square 7.538, DF = 8 and p = <0.480) is higher and null hypothesis is accepted that the model adequately fits the data (Table 3). Nagelkerke r-square value is also on the higher side, explaining 59.7% variability in the dependent variable (herbicide resistance) contributed by 14 predictor variables. The result of the classification table indicates that the model predicts 82.6 of cases correctly. With the help of the Wald test result (Table 3), estimates can

Conclusions

Cultural practices (like mono-cropping, intensive RWCS, CTD/rotavator sowing, delayed sowing and first irrigation, high use of nitrogenous fertilizers, residue burning, etc.) made P. minor ecologically fit for the IGP region. Initial high frequency of P. minor when exposed against prevailing poor spray techniques (like improper application time, lower spray volume, and improper nozzle), increased the probabilities of resistance development by imposing selection pressure. Further, arbitrary use

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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