Soil solarisation: an effective form of weed control

Soil solarisation proves to be a simple, cheap and more over highly efficient method to control weeds effectively. In soil solarisation the only price input involved is of plastic sheets.

To solarise the soil, first the soil must be in moist condition and covered with 0.125 mm thick black polyethylene or 0.1 mm thick transparent polyethylene sheet for 4 to 6 weeks.

The sheet should be in a full stretched condition and the edges buried in the soil to hold the sheet in place.

Due to solar radiation the soil under plastic sheet gets heated up and the temperature inside the sheet around 45-50⁰C. Due to heavy heat, weed seeds present in the soil under the polythene cover gets affected.

The effect of this soil solarisation mainly depends upon the exposure time of the soil and soil temperature that is to be maintained.

In addition to weed control the other advantages of soil solarisation are – it controls plant diseases, it alters some of the physical and chemical properties of the soil to promote better crop yield.

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