Wheat import mixed blessing, hunt on for `invasive' weeds

oseph John
Posted: Sep 25, 2009 at 0244 hrs IST

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Raipur: Agricultural scientists from ten states have embarked on a hunt to trace
and isolate five harmful "invasive weeds" which made their way into the country
through wheat imports. The Centre had imported a huge quantity of wheat for
supply through the Public Distribution System to tide over a scarcity two years
ago.

Surveillance officers are moving from village to village scanning backyards,
compost pits and other places around godowns and fair price shops to locate the
alien weeds Ambrosia Trifida, Viola Arvensis, Cenchrus Tribuloids, Cynoglosum
Officinale and Carolinense. Plants of these foreign weeds have already been
traced to Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Orissa, Maharashtra, West
Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka, said Dr Jay G
Varshney, Director of National Research Centre for Weed science. He told The
Indian Express that the Centre had imported nearly 63 lakh metric tonnes of
wheat in 2006-07 from Russia, Australia, Canada, Hungary, Europe, France,
Argentina, Romania, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, and Bulgaria in which nearly 25
types of weed seeds were found.

"Initially, seeds of the relatively-unknown five invasive weeds were traced
while we later intercepted nearly a dozen other species which came to India
through this wheat import. We are not aware how these weeds could develop in our
climatic conditions and how fast they could spread in our ecosystem. Besides, we
have to study the possible effects on human and animal health", he said adding
that the Jabalpur-based Directorate of Weed Science Research has taken up a Rs
6.66 crore project for surveillance of these invasive weeds.

Varshney said once any of these alien species were detected, these plants would
be grown under controlled conditions to study all their characteristics before
taking up the project for their eradication. Such aggressive surveillance has
become necessary as the fields in the country are already highly infested with
weeds earlier introduced, namely Parthenium hysterophorus, which spreads
epidemically in all seasons, he added.

According to Indira Gandhi Agriculture University (IGAU), Raipur, Director
(Research services) Dr S S Shaw and Principal Scientist A P Singh, the spread of
alien weed Ambrosia Trifida could affect human health as it was suspected to
contain allergic pollens.

After identification, he said, the weed plant would be sent to the Botanical
Survey of India for approval before taking up studies on issues such as their
suppression rate and control measures. Agriculture experts say that it was
essential to control and check spread of such invasive weeds as they push native
species to the verge of extinction and drastically reduce the yield of economic
species and agriculture crops.

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