Since ancient civilizations millets have been traditionally cultivated as a staple food in Asia and Africa. After the popularization of fine cereals such as rice and wheat, the millets lost their popularity and remained confined to a limited area and production. However, when we talk about nutritional security, millets have immense potential as they are rich in different amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Therefore, they are considered “Nutri-Cereals.” Nature has also equipped them with a high potential to thrive well in resource constraint situations. Hence, considering the growing ill effects of changing climatic scenarios, their demand is going to be high in the future. As far as the cultivation of millets is considered, their yield is compromised by several biotic and abiotic stresses. Among the biotic stresses, weed infestation is one of the most important ones, which drastically reduces the yield of millets. Millets are slow growers at the early stages of their growth. Hence, if proper and timely weed management strategies are not taken then weeds deprive the crop of different growth resources such as nutrients, soil moisture, light, and space which ultimately hamper the yield. Several weed management strategies, namely, pre-emergence herbicides, and herbicide mixtures have been standardized for weed control in millets. However, limited kinds of literature are available suggesting weed management options in millets, post-emergence herbicide options, and integrated weed management options. Post-emergence herbicides along with other methods of weed control can provide a season-long competition-free environment to the millet crops which will increase millet productivity. The available weed management options from different works of literature have been discussed in this article.
Key words: Crop-weed competition, millets, striga, weed diversity, weed management
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