Abstract Oil palm is a commercially important crop cultivated across 27 tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Due to favorable climatic conditions, oil palm cultivation is concentrated in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand accounting for approximately 87% of the global palm oil supply. Effective weed management is essential for maintaining oil palm productivity; however, excessive reliance on herbicides has raised concerns regarding herbicide resistance and environmental sustainability. This review evaluates current weed management strategies in oil palm plantations, including chemical, mechanical, cultural, and biological, with an emphasis on integrated weed management (IWM) strategies suitable for Southeast Asian production systems. Particular attention is given to the differing weed management constraints faced by industrial plantations and smallholder producers, including variations in labor availability, operational scale, and access to weed management technologies. Current evidence suggests that combining complementary control tactics, such as integrating mechanical and cultural practices with chemical and biological control methods, offers greater long-term sustainability than reliance on herbicides alone. Individual approaches, however, face significant limitations, including economic constraints, labor shortages, and inconsistent effectiveness, highlighting the importance of integrated strategies. We conclude that adaptive, multi-tactic IWM programs tailored to local production scales will be critical for sustainable weed management in future oil palm production.
Chow et al. (Tue,) studied this question.