Scope and potential of herbicidal values of the fungal pathogens and its secondary metabolites for sustainable weed management

Abstract

Weeds are the main competitors to the crop for various resources like nutrients, moisture, light, space, etc. They are one among the biotic factors which cause severe yield reduction (45%), increase the cultivation cost and decrease the input effi-ciency when compared to other biotic factors like insects (30%), diseases (20%) and other pests (5%). An economic loss of around 11 billion USD has been estimated due to the infestation of weeds in 10 major crops of the Indian sub-continent (Gharde