Are We Missing the Mark in Site‐Specific Weed Management Research?

ABSTRACT

Site‐specific weed management (SSWM) has long been promoted as a promising strategy to reduce herbicide use by adapting weed control to the spatial distribution of weeds. Despite decades of research and technological progress, adoption in commercial farming remains limited. This study investigates whether this gap reflects knowledge gaps within the scientific literature and, more prominently, a mismatch between research priorities and practical needs. A systematic literature search combined with bibliometric analyses was conducted using articles indexed in the Web of Science database. Bibliographic coupling and keyword co‐occurrence analyses were applied to map the structure of the SSWM research field. A total of 563 articles on SSWM were identified through the literature search. Most publications focus on weed detection, particularly recent studies using deep learning and machine vision. In contrast, only 40 papers address site‐specific herbicide application as a complete workflow integrating weed detection, decision‐making and site‐specific herbicide application under realistic field conditions. The bibliometric analyses reveal disciplinary fragmentation and limited cross‐disciplinary integration. Furthermore, the limited number of integrated SSWM studies, combined with a pronounced lack of on‐farm studies and farmer interactions, indicates a significant research–practice gap. Without stronger engagement with on‐farm realities and better integration across disciplines, weed research risks becoming increasingly invisible to farmers and policymakers, thereby diminishing its societal impact despite its potential contribution to sustainable agriculture.