A first of its kind 'weed museum' will soon be inaugurated in Jaipur at Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute (RARI), Durgapura. The idea behind the weed museum is to present preserved samples of weeds to the farmers and the general public. This is to help them identify it and protect their crops.

In the weed museum is Durgapura, 100 preserved weed samples are on display in herbarium boxes. The museum has also put on display posters of major rabi, kharif and noxious weeds of zone III (a) which includes places like Dausa, Tonk, Ajmer and Jaipur. The posters contain basic information about the weeds and show their different parts.

AFP

Weeds are an ever-growing problem for the farmers of the state. These unwanted plants which grow with the required crops, hamper the yield and degrade the quality of crops. Farmers try whatever they can, to get rid of them, but invariably, crops fall victim to them. The major hindrance is their identification itself.

There are various kinds of weeds and farmers cannot identify all of them. Since they are not aware that their crops are plagued by them, they are unable to use the required method to curb the problem. Also, farmers have local names for the weeds which make it difficult for agricultural workers to correlate them with their scientific names.

Reuters

Professor of Agronomy at Rajasthan Agricultural Research Institute, Surendra Singh, reportedly said, "In recent years, climate change has become a major bottleneck for sustainable crop production in the country. On the one hand, rising temperature is affecting productivity of different crops in the whole of northern India and on the other hand, some new weed species are emerging. Some new emerging weeds are still unidentified. With the help of this museum, we are trying to create awareness among farmers. At present we are focusing on weeds in Jaipur and its nearby cities. Later, more weed museums can be opened."

Assistant Professor at RARI, Shweta Gupta, reportedly informed that collecting these weed samples is in itself a difficult and tedious task.

"It took 1.5 years to collect these 100 weeds and prepare their herbarium for display. One weed's preserved sample took around 8-10 days with the help of herbarium press. Sometimes, due to high moisture content in the fresh weed sample, weed samples get contaminated due to fungus and the sample was destroyed. Then again, the same process was repeated. The end result is satisfactory and by the end of next month, this museum will be opened for public," Times of India quoted Shweta as saying.