A brainstorming meeting was convened by the ICAR-DWR, Jabalpur in collaboration with IRRI, Philippines on 05-07-2021 in Virtual mode to discuss on “New areas in basic and strategic research on weed management in DSR”. Dr Sudhanshu Singh, Director, IRRI-South Asia Regional Centre (ISARC), Varanasi, India; Dr. Virender Kumar, Senior Scientist (Weed Science), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, Dr Pradeep, IRRI- India, Director and scientists from ICAR-DWR, Jabalpur participated in the meeting. Dr JS Mishra, Director, ICAR-DWR welcomed the participants and put forth the objectives of convening this meeting. He flagged-off the basic and strategic researchable issues concerning weed biology, ecology, and management in direct-seeded rice (DSR). He outlined the basic reasons of temporal shifting happened from DSR to PTR and again gradual shifting from PTR to DSR. He also highlighted the several constraints associated in PTR and for which DSR is the possible solution with the intervention of mechanization (Seed drill) and herbicides. Dr Sudhanshu Singh thanked the Director, DWR for organizing the meeting and desired to have collaboration in the field of weed management in DSR.

Dr Virender Kumar, in his presentation highlighted the futuristic basic and strategic research on DSR with major focus on ecology and biology of weed (weed seed dormancy and germination pattern of major weeds of DSR as influenced by light, temperature, moisture stress, flooding, burial depth, mulching etc.); mechanical weeding (Optimizing timing of mechanical weeding, identification of weeds those are tolerant and sensitive to mechanical weeding and assessment of crop damage; optimizing crop geometry to minimize crop damage. Other strategic research areas discussed were: Optimizing stale seedbed (Timing and number of tillage/irrigation), assessing potential benefits and risk of herbicide-tolerant rice technology relating to gene flow risk to weedy rice, identifying high yielding and weed competitive rice cultivars under DSR condition, monitoring herbicide-resistance evolution, weedy rice-awareness and management, assessing impact of futuristic climate change on crop-weed competition and herbicide efficacy, simulating impact of rainfall on herbicide efficacy, compatibility testing of tank mixing for controlling mixed weed flora, comparing and identifying effective herbicides with different modes of action, etc.

After through discussion, it was requested by the Director, ICAR-DWR that IRRI should provide some of the weed competitive cultivars so that these could be included in varietal screening programme. Since, IRRI has a specific programme on DSR being implemented in many ICAR institutes and SAUs under ICAR-IRRI net-work programme, it was also agreed to include ICAR-DWR in the Network programme, especially on weed management aspects in DSR. The meeting ended with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr RP Dubey, Principal Scientist, ICAR-DWR.