Over the years, several agricultural interventions and technologies have contributed immensely towards intensifying food production globally. The introduction of herbicides provided a revolutionary tool for managing the difficult task of weed control contributing significantly towards global food security and human survival. However, in recent times, the successes achieved with chemical weed control have taken a turn, threatening the very existence we have tried to protect. The side effects of conventional farming, particularly the increasing cases of herbicide resistance agricultural weeds, is quite alarming. Global calls for sustainable weed management approaches to be used in food production is mounting. This paper provides detailed information on the molecular biological background of herbicide resistant weed biotypes and highlights the alternative, non-chemical weed management methods which can be used to prevent the development and spreading of herbicide-resistant weeds.

In crop fields, weeds are perfect hosts for plant pathogenic viruses. The effects of these viruses can range from latent infection to plant death, affecting crop quality and yield and leading to economic loss in the world. Virus infection threatens cereals used as food for most of the world’s population. Weeds growing in cereal fields can compete for essential supply and act as virus reservoirs, strengthening their deteriorating effect. In this review, we collected the current information on viruses presenting in the most important monocotyledonous weeds: Echinocloa crus-galli, Setaria viridis, Cynodon dactylon, Sorghum halepense and millet species growing as weeds. Identifying plant viruses in monocotyledonous weed hosts provides more information about viral infection flow and guides the development of management strategies for safeguarding our field crops.