Bio-efficacy of pre and post-emergence herbicides on lentil yield, weed control efficiency, weed index, nutrient uptake and economics

Abstract

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus) is an important grain legume crop. Among all the biotic factors, weed infestation is being an adverse impact on growth, yield, nutrient uptake and economics due to lentil short stature, low branching, lack of protective canopy and it’s unable to smother the weeds. Although, applying pre emergence herbicides, in many situation early weed control herbicides are not that much efficient for attaining higher yields due to lentil is long duration crop and critical weed competition upto 40-60 DAS. Sequence use of pre and post-emergence herbicides and application of early post-emergence herbicides may help in controlling the weeds at later stages of crop growth period. To understand resources distribution in lentil a field experiment was laid out at BAU research farm, Sabour during Rabi of 2019-20 in RCBD replicated thrice with 13 treatments to assess the effect of various pre and post-emergence herbicides in lentil. Out of 13 treatments, weed free treatment produced significantly higher grain yield and haum yield and new generation herbicides application of pendimethalin fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr and oxyflurofen fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr were statistically at par with weed free treatment. Weed control efficiency, Weed index, Nutrients uptake and Economics by different weeds treatments were recorded significantly higher in pendimethalin fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr, oxyflurofen fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr and imazethapyr + imazomox at 60 DAS and at harvest. Ultimately, it can be concluded that, application of pendimethalin fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr and oxyflurofen fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr in lentil brings in enhancing grain yield and achieving more net returns, B:C ratio apart from suppressing the weeds through higher weed control efficiency and lower weed index.