Report by the District Magistrate, Koraput, Odisha in Original Application No - 148/19 filed by Basanta Patra Vs State of Odisha & Others. The matter related to preservation of Jagannath Sagar, Jeypore, Odisha. The report stated that for de-weeding of Jagannath Sagar, the district administration has agreed to hire the …
"Nitrogen enrichment is pushing us towards a weedier world,' says David Wedin of the University of Toronto, Canada. Burning fossil fuel releases nitrogen oxides, which ecologists believe could act as fertilisers and promote luxuriant growth of weeds. This shift in vegetation could hinder the earth's ability to moderate global warming, …
the alarm bells started ringing in September last year when a farmer in Ethuca, a small town on the banks of the river Murray in Northern Victoria, Australia, tried to clear his farm of an annual ryegrass, Lolium rigidum , which is a routine practice before the plantation of summer …
POLLINATION brought about by the wind is a common mode of plant reproduction. Scientists have now found that pollen from commercial fields of transgenic crops spread further than was Previously believed (New, Scientist, Vol 148, No 2003). The list of irritants causing transboundary problems has increased with genetically engineered plants …
Weeds are more often a nuisance., and so was the case with Banmara or Eupatorium adenophorum which was the bane of farmers in the eastern Himalaya and Uttar Pradesh. Shunned even by animals, the weed had no uses except for being used as an antiseptic and anti-bleeding agent at times …
SCIENTISTS at the Zonal Research Centre at the College of Agricultural Engineering (CAE) in Coi-mbatore have developed a motorised machine for weed extraction in fields and orchards. The device claims to bring down the cost of weeding a hectare of cultivated land by 70 per cent from Rs 2,200 for …
The Little Rann of Kutch is under attack from the Gujarat forest department, which is merrily planting a weed that is sucking the area of its juices. The history of the Little Rann tells us that before the '50s, sweet water could be found at a depth of 6 metres. …
Two of the country's most widespread weeds, Parthenium (Congress grass) and water hyacinth, will be used to produce petroleum-based chemicals. The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in Nagpur has discovered these weeds and other cellulose-rich wastes such as banana stems can totally replace petroleum products used in the production …
The suspicion that the exotic Mexican beetle (Zigogramma bicolorata) may be causing more harm than good has been confirmed by the Union agriculture ministry. The ministry's plant protection adviser, R L Rajak, has asked agricultural universities to stop immediately multiplication and distribution of the species. The beetle was introduced in …
"How here he sipped, how there he plundered smug And sucked all o'er like an industrious bug." That's how Alexander Pope, the 18th century English satirist, referred to the exploitative tendency of some humans in his poem, The Dunciad. But his lines could well describe the nightmarish feelings of Indian …
INSECTS that were introduced to stem the spread of water hyacinth are beginning to avoid feeding on the weed because they are polluted by toxic metals. However, the insects seem to be developing resistance to the toxicity by producing new cellular proteins and synthesizing new ones. In experiments conducted by …
SHOULD a weed that provides income to villagers be eradicated? This is the dilemma forest officials in Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh face. The lantana bush spreads like a weed and threatens the growth of trees by competing for soil nutrients. But a poor villager can earn up to Rs …
A weed which was carried into India from the United States has spread within a decade across a thousand miles of the country from Bangalore in the south to Kashmir in the north. This prolific plant, Parthenium hysterophorus, has brought with it a near epidemic of contact dermatitis. The outbreak …
