Weed threshold levels of injury to agricultural crops is a branch of weed science that has presented advanced scientific research in Portugal and Brazil in the last three decades. However, during this period there has been a multitude of translations of technical terms from the English or French into Portuguese that have currently hindered the exchange of technical scientific information. The objectives of this literature review were to define the terms relating to five different levels of weed injury used in weed science; to consolidate the acronyms used for these terms in the Portuguese language, to provide the names that have correspondence in French and English, to indicate the scientific questions that the terms imply, and to present the forms of calculation that can be used for each level defined. The terms studied in this review were: critical density, economic injury level, economic threshold, level of tolerance, and level of security attack. The forms of calculation of economic threshold in the case of infestation with a single plant species are derived from linear, hyperbolic, multiple linear and multiple non-linear models; for cases of infestation involving more than one plant species, these forms are derived from multiple linear equation between weed density and crop yield.
equations; critical density; economic injury level; economic threshold; tolerance level; safety level
