Invasive Plants and Weeds: A Threat to Biodiversity and Agriculture in Shamli

INTRODUCTION

Invasive plant species are the species which have deliberately or inadvertently introduced to a region, place or area where they don‘t grow naturally. They are endemic to one place or territory and affect the biodiversity of another place where they try to introduce (Shah et al. 2020). Due to interspecific competition invasive plant species restrict crop species to produce optimum yield of crops. Further, due to untimely and inadequate practice of weed control, a sizeable quantity of agriculture produce is also lost each year. Weeds not only cause substantial losses in crop yield but also degrade the quality of agricultural produce. The loss of yield may vary from crop to crop and can be associated to various agro-ecological factors. According to estimates, approximately one-third yield of plant products is lost globally (Bruce 2012) and weeds are the major contributors to these losses. Singhal (2008) reported that approximately 900 billion crop losses per annum is caused by insect pests, diseases and weeds In India. Reports reveal that weeds and invasive species can cause 46.2 to 61.5% loss in rice, wheat and maize while insect and pests can cause 27.3 to 33.7% of actual losses (Oerke 2006). Zhang (2003) reported that weeds can reduce from 12.3 to 16.5% of average crop yields in China. Observations reveal that in the initial years, some weeds like parthenium start growing in the undisturbed and open non-agricultural areas, but gradually it encroached into agricultural lands and drastically affects the crops like Sorghum (Das 2002). Parthenium an annual herb, has higher growth rate in comparison to other weeds and tend to become perennial (Tadesse et al. 2010 a & b). According to the definition given by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) invasive species are foreigner species, which become established in habitat having favorable climatic conditions and threatens native biodiversity. These invasive species spread very fast and can be distributed throughout the world. The BLM (Bureau of Land Management, U.S.) considers plants invasive if they have been introduced into an environment far from the region of their evolution. As a result, they hardly found natural enemies to limit their growth and reproduction (Westbrooks 1998). The problem of invasive plants has been the matter of great concern at the national as well as international level (Maheshwari and Paul 1975, Nair 1988, Drake et al. 1989, Pandey and Parmar 1994, Huxel 1999, Meyer 2000, Mooney and Hobbs 2000, Almeilla and Freitas 2001, Hall 2003, Kohli et al. 2004, Cox 2004, Sharma et al. 2005, Raghuvanshi et al. 2005, Khuroo et al. 2007, Negi and Hajra 2007, Reddy 2008, Qian et al. 2008, Khanna 2009, Beena Kumari 2009, Joshi and Rawat 2011, Chandra Sekar 2012, Chandra Sekar et al. 2012, Gaur and Rawat 2013, Rastogi et al. 2015, Arvind Singh 2015, Wagh challenge in developing Asian countries, especially in India. It is a need of time to enumerate the invasive plants and weeds of popular crops, so that concrete steps may be taken to eradicate these harmful plants. The steps taken in this direction will definitely help in conserving valuable biodiversity. Considering above facts, a preliminary survey of invasive plant species and weeds of Shamli district was conducted.

Shamli (formerly Prabudh Nagar) is a district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. This district was carved out from Muzaffarnagar District on 28 September 2011 as Prabudh Nagar and renamed Shamli in July 2012. Shamli is the headquarters of the district. Shamli is located approximately 100 kilometres from Delhi along the Delhi–Saharanpur highway. The district lies in the fertile Doab region and hence the major occupation is agriculture. Shamli is located at 29.45°N 77.32°E. It has an average elevation of 248 metres (Fig. 1).

In the course of investigation during 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, the entire district was frequently surveyed. Several attempts were made for collection and study in different seasons in different botanically interested localities like Kairana, Shamli, Kandhala, Jhinjhana, Unn, Chausana, Banat etc. During field trips plants were collected from different localities like roadsides, gardens, parks, and cultivated lands of Sugarcane, Rice, Wheat, Barley, Jowar, etc. Efforts were made to collect specimens in flowering and fruiting stage and collected in polythene bags. The collected plants were processed, preserved and mounted on herbarium sheets following the standard herbarium techniques (Jain and Rao 1978). The dried specimens were identified by consulting different deeds and literatures (Kanjilal 1928, Duthie 1903-1929, Gupta 1961, Maheshwari 1963, Babu 1977,

All the invasive plant species have been enumerated in Table 1. Botanical name of each species is tabulated followed by family name, habit, name of the native place (origin), category and propagation.

The present study is an effort to enlist weed and invasive plant species of Shamli district. Total 161 species belonging 108 genera and 39 families are documented in Table 1. Dicots are dominant and represented by 143 species under 96 genera from 33 families and monocots by 18 species under 12 genera and 6 species (Fig. 3). Most of these invasive species (57.14 %) were introduced from tropical America including South and North America, followed by tropical Africa and other parts of Africa (17.39%). The study area lies under sub-tropical region, so, the plants native to tropical regions found this area suitable for their vigorous growth. Maximum number of species were reported from the family Asteraceae (31), followed by Papilionaceae (13) Amaranthaceae (12), Solanaceae and Poaceae with 10 species each (Fig. 1). Herbs accounted for 125 species, shrubs 22 species, climbers and grasses represented 7 species only (Fig. 2). Perhaps this is the first report in Shamli district, because no significant piece of literature is available so far mentioning information on these lines. More recently Malik (2015) has enlisted the flora of district Muzaffarnagar including district Shamli but he conducted his work before partition of district Muzaffarnagar. Some of the species observed during current study are similar to the report of Malik (2015). It has been observed that few species like Parthenium hysterophorus, Lantana camara, Ageratum conyzoides, Tridax procumbens, Ipomoea carnea, Cannabis sativa and Chenopodium murale are highly invasive and have invaded not only the non-agricultural area but agricultural fields also. In addition, these species have been noticed interfering and replacing the natural flora of this region. Therefore, further detailed studies are required to assess their direct and indirect impact on agricultural crop yield.

From the outcome of present study, it can be concluded that Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh state of India hosts a large variety of weed and invasive plant species dominated by Asteraceae, Papilionaceae, Amaranthaceae, Solanaceae and Poaceae families. In the survey of Shamli district, it has been found that the exotic plant species were

Majority of invasive plant species comes under herbs. Most of the reported species are naturalized but some are interfering and noxious also. There is an urgent need to take necessary steps to control invasion in new areas so that biodiversity and crop losses may reduce.

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Assistant Professor, Department of Botany, Vijay Singh Pathik Government (PG) College, Kairana, Shamli, UP