Weeds and Protection Against Them, Harvesting

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What are Weeds?

Weeds are harmful plants that grow alongside the crops. They are considered to be a threat because these plants take up the nutrients from the soil and they compete for sunlight and water. This could seriously damage the crops leaving them with little or no nutrients at all.

What is Weeding?

The removal of weeds is called Weeding. It should be done before the weeds produce flowers and seeds.

Methods of weeding

Farmers usually remove all weeds in the initial stage of soil preparation. While tilling the soil, almost all weeds are uprooted and their remains serve as humus to the soil. Implements like a khurpi or a seed drill are used to uproot weeds.

If weeds grow after the crop is sown, they need to be removed manually. This can be done with bare hands or by spraying weedicides which are designed to only kill weeds.

What is Harvesting?

The cutting of the crop after it has matured is called Harvesting. This is done usually after a span of three to four months of sowing the seeds.

In harvesting, crops are either pulled out or cut close to the ground. It can be done manually with a sickle or with a machine called the harvester.

What is Threshing?

 Threshing is the process in which the grains are separated from the stalks. It is the next step after harvesting.

It can be carried out manually by the beating of stalks on a surface or using machines called

 Some farmers use a machine called combine, which does harvesting as well as threshing.

What is Winnowing?

Grains have a covering called the chaff. During threshing, the chaff is loosened, but it needs to be separated from the grains. This is done by the process called Winnowing.

In this process, grains are dropped from a height and the wind carries away the chaff while the grains being heavier get collected in a heap.

Summary

Also Check:

• Irrigation and Traditional Methods of Irrigation
• Introduction to Agriculture
• Preparation of Soil