Decimating the perpetual recurrence of Tropical weeds on Arable land: A new population-Based Approach to Sustainable Management

                @article{CRSIJ26000468,
                  author = {Abdullahi Musa A'ihi (Ph.D)},
                  title = {Decimating the perpetual recurrence of Tropical weeds on Arable land: A new population-Based Approach to Sustainable Management},
                  journal = {Cosmo Research and Science International Journal},
                  year = {2026},
                  volume = {2},
                  number = {3},
                  pages = {29-40},
                  issn = {3108-1584},
                  url = {https://cosmorsij.com/published/CRSIJ26000468.pdf},
                  abstract = {The persistent recurrence of weeds on arable land remains one of the most formidable biological, agronomic and economic constraints to sustainable crop production in tropical agriculture. This phenomenon is often interpreted as a failure of weed-control methods, whereas it is more fundamentally a consequence of the biological resilience of weed populations, the persistence of soil seed banks, continuous seed rain, vegetative regeneration, favourable tropical environmental conditions and repeated agricultural practices that inadvertently replenish weed populations. This paper advances a new conceptual approach, termed the Tropical Weed Recurrence Decimation Approach (TWRDA), which shifts the principal objective of weed management from repeated destruction of emerged weeds to systematic depletion of the biological mechanisms responsible for their recurrence. The approach integrates weed identification and mapping, prevention of weed introduction, soil-seed-bank depletion, stale-seedbed techniques, strategic tillage, competitive crop establishment, crop rotation, cover crops, residue and mulch management, timely mechanical intervention, judicious herbicide use, suppression of reproductive weeds before seed maturation, sanitation and continuous monitoring Contemporary evidence indicates that integrated weed management is more sustainable than dependence on a single control tactic, while excessive dependence on herbicides contributes to the evolution and spread of herbicide-resistant weeds. The paper argues that tropical weed management should therefore transition from a reactive, season-by-season control philosophy to a proactive, population-management system centred on breaking weed life cycles. The approach is particularly relevant to smallholder and resource-constrained farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa, where labour, herbicide costs, environmental concerns and changing climatic conditions complicate conventional weed control. A practical field implementation model and research agenda are proposed for validation under Nigerian and wider tropical agro-ecological conditions.},
                  keywords = {Arable land, crop competition, decimation approach, sustainable agriculture tropical weeds recurrence, integrated weed management.},
                  month = {November}
        }