Weeds cause serious ecological problem in crop fields. Weed species can reduce crop production 12-98 percent depending on type of cultivation. It also results in reducing the high quantities of minerals, nutrients and moisture more efficiently than the crops in farm lands as they grow faster than the crops. The diversity and distribution of weed diversity is mainly dependant on soil, climatic, cropping, fertilizers and management factors. The present paper discusses the weed species diversity and distribution in various crop fields of south coastal Andhra Pradesh. The study is mainly conducted based on field survey across different cropping seasons during the year 2014-2015. Empirical field survey has been conducted in selected areas of various agricultural fields, since paddy is predominant crop in this region. The survey for the current was mainly conducted in rice fields followed by cotton and sugarcane. A total of 168 weed species were documented during the field survey belonging 50 different families of plant kingdom such as Mimoceaceae, Fabaceae Cesalpinaceae Amaranthaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Poaceae, Asteraceae Rubiaceae, Cyperaceaeand, Bignoniaceae etc. Out of 168 species, 27 were monocots and 147 species were dicots. The dominant families found in the study included Poaceae, Fabaceae, Acanthaceae, Amaranthaceae, Rubiaceae, Cyparaceae which consists of minimum ten species each. This paper mainly discusses about weed species diversity and distribution in crop fields and their management.
