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Chemical weed control, the most common weed control method worldwide, has become unsustainable due to increasing herbicide resistance and environmental concerns of herbicide use. In addition to harmful effects on human health, livestock, and natural vegetation, herbicide use is facing challenges including less accessibility to new herbicide formulation, air pollution, herbicide selectivity under changing cropping patterns and mix-cropping, unavailability of herbicide with new mode of actions, herbicide hormesis in weeds, water contamination and soil erosion (Abbas et al., 2017; Carles et al., 2017; Nadeem et al., 2017). Under the immense pressure of intensive agriculture and a changing climate in the agroecosystem, herbicides’ adverse effects are not acceptable. Therefore, scientists are searching for alternate weed management strategies to provide sustainable and eco-friendly weed control in different crops. Thermal weed control by soil solarization as a non-chemical technique will become popular due to its long-term weed control and the added benefits of increased soil nutrient availability, disease, and insect-pest management (Ghosh and Dolai, 2014). Solarization is a non-chemical process of heating the soil using polythene sheets that reduce weeds’ population by decaying soil weed bank and killing weeds seedlings, and some other soil-borne pests (Stapleton and DeVay, 1986). It is more effective in warmer parts of the world and is used on a restricted but rising scale (Arbopleya, 2009; Stapleton et al., 2000). Covering wet seedbeds with transparent polythene sheets for some time captures the maximum radiation energy from sunlight and increases the top layer soil temperature to 50-60 oC (Lamont, 2005). The upper soil layer’s continuous high temperature is the main reason that decreases weed seed bank (Asagarpour et al., 2008). Thermal weed control revealed a significant reduction in weed density and weed seed bank, and transparent plastic sheets gave better results than the dark plastic sheet (Asagarpour et al., 2008). In addition to reducing weed seed bank, selective covering of soil between the crop rows directly killed weed seedlings due to the high temperature. Kumar et al. (2002) reported that above 80% of weeds were controlled by solarization until the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) harvest. Prather et al. (2002) stated that various solarization treatments were equally efficient to control weeds in strawberry, with the number of weeds reduced by 86-94% and biomass of weeds decreased by 94-99%. Abstract: Background: Thermal weed control is a viable, costeffective, and eco-friendly emerging alternative to highly challenged and unsustainable chemical weed control. Objective: To find out the most suitable pre-sowing soil solarization durations for effective weed control and soil fertility enhancement in sesame crop. Methods: A field study was conducted during the summer season of 2016 and 2017. Different soil solarization treatments were applied, including 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks before sowing (WBS) of sesame by spreading transparent polythene sheets. Results: The temperatures of solarized soil at 10 cm depth were 8-10 oC more than the control. The soil NPK and organic matter contents were gradually increased with increasing solarization durations. The highest soil nitrogen (0.71%), phosphorus (9.63 ppm), K (166.2 ppm), and organic matter content (1.12%) were observed with the longest soil solarization for 12 WBS. Different solarization durations provided 23 to 64% weed control efficiency and up to a 34% rise in sesame yield. Conclusions: Based on the current findings, soil solarization for 12 WBS by polythene sheets is an effective alternative to the chemical weed control method with additional positive effects on soil fertility and sesame yield.

Soil solarization improves soil fertility in addition to weed management in sesame under subtropical conditions of Pakistan