Global Research in Weed Science: A Bibliometric Synthesis

Abstract

Weed is one of the major pests for crops with estimated global losses between 100 million and 26 billion USD. Therefore, weed management remains central for crop production. Weed science is evolving with time having paradigm shift from manual to robotic weed management. This transformation needs to be discerned for identifying the future research needs. This study explores global research trends in weed science using a bibliometric analysis. A total of 48,000 articles with ∽115,000 associated keywords were collected and analyzed. Our analysis showed that weed science research primarily focused on ecology of weed i.e., crop-weed-soil environment interactions, and different weed management techniques covering >50% of the keywords. Herbicide research such as formulation, effectiveness, and safe use was the most dominant research topic. Moreover, invasive species and their management using emerging technologies such as robotic weed management also received significant attention. Therefore, modern weed science has evolved as interdisciplinary science with intimate links to biology, ecology, chemistry, and engineering. The overview on weed science may guide the researchers in identifying the future research topics and preparing course contents on weed science.