**5.2 Cultural weed management**

Cultural weed control is among the most important means of weed management used easily by most cucumber farmers. Cultural control is the use of common practices such as crop rotation, variation of crop row spacing, competitive cultivars adapted to climate and regional conditions, live mulches, cover crops etc. for the proper management of weeds, water and soil [57]. There has been a growing interest in cultural weed control methods during the last two decades as a result of the increasing concern of pesticide use. Cultural practices are regarded as the second

most environmentally friendly weed control method next to preventive measures. Cultural techniques help the cucumber farmers to reduce the cost of weed management. These techniques can affect weed-crop interaction and inter-relationship particularly during the critical period of weed control. These techniques provides favorable and conducive environment for the growth of cucumber and give the crop a competitive advantage over infesting weed species. Cultural weed control methods are easy and cost–effective in cucumber production. Crop rotation, primary tillage, soil solarization, high plant population and manipulation of sowing dates and row spacing are cultural techniques that can easily control weeds in cucumber production [21, 46, 50].
