**12. Conclusion**

Weeds are the crucial yield-limiting factor in crop production that affect crop growth and yield dither directly or indirectly. There are different weed management options are available; however, chemical weed control strategy is quite effective among them. Herbicide is an important component in weed management and registered a major share in the pesticide market to improve crop productivity. Application of herbicide poses several environmental consequences since herbicides are subjected to different degradation processes in agro-ecosystem. Encapsulation of herbicides is an innovative strategy and offers a controlled release system to address the issues of chemical weed control. Polymers are unique and explored their specific characteristics for the encapsulation of active ingredients. There are numerous polymers available to design smart release formulation. Herbicide encapsulation improves stability of active ingredient and safeguards the active molecules from environmental vulnerability. Further, it enhances the bioactivity, which helps to achieve prolonged weed control with higher efficiency. Encapsulated formulation achieves the same weed control efficiency at lower dosage as compared to the conventional formulation. Research evidence showed that there was no significant residue carryover due to application of encapsulated formulation. Therefore, the development of encapsulated herbicide formulation has greater scope in crop protection. Moreover, encapsulated formulation will make a greater revolution in the chemical era to manage weeds at a lower rate of application. However, costlier instruments are required for designing and characterization of encapsulated formulation, and regulatory evaluation of nano-formulation are few limitations for development and commercialization of smart herbicides.
