Planting, Regeneration, Aftercare and Maintenance - Afforestation, Reforestation and Forest Restoration in Arid and Semi-arid Tropics - page 110

Fig. 6.2 Weeding-hoeing in a
pit-saucer

6.8 Removal of Weeds

Weeds will often compete with the plants to affect the latter's growth adversely. In
fact, lack of timely weeding will, in many cases, be a guarantee of failure of the
plantation. Weeding should be done timely and executed properly. Depending upon
the duration of the season of rainfall and the extent of seedbank in the soil, more
than one weeding operation per season may have to be carried out (Fig. 6.2 ).
Time of weeding is determined from the time and amount of rainfall, the time of
planting, and the density and type of seedbank in the soil. Normally, weeds should
be expected after 4 weeks of planting, and if they are found growing significantly,
weeding operation should be carried out immediately. If weeds are allowed to grow
beyond 10-15 cm in height, they will start adversely affecting the plants. However,
in soils of lighter texture and with less vehement weeds, it may be enough to go
for one weeding operation nearly 6 weeks from the date of planting. Subsequent
weeding, if at all needed, can be combined with hoeing which will have to be carried
out more frequently than weeding. In clean sands, especially sand dunes, no weeding
is required, though in flat, interdunal stabilised portions of sand dunes, weeds will
have to be removed.
Weeding is an operation involving a fair amount of skill. Using a proper tool, all
the weeds in the saucer should be dug out with their roots, collected, and removed.
If roots are only dug out and not removed, these will re-establish in the soil. In hard
soils, this entails more labour and thus calls for a more careful operation. In lighter
soils, it will usually be much easier to remove weeds. After removal of weeds, the
soil should be spread evenly over the saucer bed, and if large clods of soil are formed,
these should be broken or pulverised before spreading over. Depth of digging will
depend upon the depth of the root zone of the weeds; and therefore, if weeds have
already grown big it will be necessary to dig deeper, and invest more labour.
Repeated weeding may be required for the reason—even if weeds have been
removed with their roots effectively—that there might be seeds that have not germi-
nated during the first rainfall, and these will germinate during the second rainfall.
Density of weeds during the second growth will certainly be much less. However,
these weeds should be removed as carefully and timely as the first weeds. In most
cases, no more than two weeding operations will be required.