Facilities Available

The DWSR is the only one of its kind in the entire world in the field of weed management research. The Directorate, since its inception  as NRCWS has significantly contributed in identifying major weeds in different crops and cropping systems,  weed competitive crop cultivars and weed smothering intercrops, developing national database on weeds; evaluating new herbicides and making herbicide recommendations; monitoring of herbicide residues in food chain and environment; improving non-chemical and biological methods of weed control; managing parasitic, perennial and other invasive weeds and transferring improved weed management technologies to the end users.

 Laboratories

The Directorate has  well-equipped laboratories with modern scientific instruments like HPLC, IRGA, AAS, universal research microscope with photographic attachment, stereo zoom research microscope, nitrogen auto analyzer, leaf area meter, UV-visible double beam spectrophotometer, high speed refrigerated centrifuge, HPLC grade water purification assembly, multi-probe soil moisture meter, chlorophyll meter, Line quantum sensor with data logger, Gel documentation unit etc.

The Directorate has a big containment facility and two controlled environmental chambers to facilitate research under controlled conditions. Three open top chambers are there for studies on crop-weed competition under elevated CO₂ conditions. The installation of Free Air CO₂ Enrichment (FACE) facility is undergoing to further enhance the capability to undertake research in this direction. The Directorate has a well-developed agricultural engineering workshop with facilities for fabrication, designing and development of weed control tools and implements. In addition to these, net/poly house, quarantine insectory and an automatic weather station to record the daily weather data are also available. It also has a pneumatic boat for survey and surveillance of aquatic flora and fauna.  

ARIS Cell and Library

The ARIS cell is well equipped with computers, VSAT and LAN facilities, color xerox-cum-printer and A-0 plotter. Specialized software like ARCInfo for GIS analysis, ERDAS Imagine for satellite image analysis besides the routinely used software for data analysis are available. All the scientists are provided with internet facility. At present the library is having a total collection of 1961 books pertaining to weed science. It has modern facilities such as CAB-PEST and CAB-SAC CD-ROMs and Current Contents on Diskette (CCOD) on biological sciences. As on date, the library subscribes to 67 Indian and 19 foreign journals. DWSR library is also a member of Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA) under NAIP (ICAR). All the scientists have on-line access to more than 2000 e-journals in various fields of science.

Total Library Software system has also recently been installed for facilitating the library automation and information retrieval. Reprographic and documentation facilities have been created for the preparation of documents and reports.

Farm and glass house/ net house facilities

The Directorate possesses 61.5 ha land, out of which 35.4 ha during kharif and 46.4 ha area during rabi season was covered for carrying out various field experiments and on-farm demonstrations inclusive of commercial crops/seed growing purposes during the year under report. In addition to this, it has poly house, containment and net house facilities for carrying out pot culture experiments.