Abstract
The concern for human health and safety coupled with the increase in herbicides resistant weeds necessitated the need to investigate the effect of frequency of hand weeding on weed suppression, productivity and grains quality in two varieties of cowpea (Tvx 3236 and Ife brown). Plot layout was a split-plot arrangement in complete randomized block design with three replications. The cowpea lines were subjected to five treatments of frequency of hand weeding. Data on weed and crop were subjected to Analysis of Variance. Means were separated using Duncan Multiple Range Test at 0.05 level of significance. Weed species that were found to be preponderant include Brachiaria deflexa, Euphorbia heterophylla and Commelina benghalensis. The three hand weeding at 3, 6 and 9 weeks after planting (WAP) showed the highest weed control efficiency of 90.48 % followed by those of two hand weeding at 3 and 6 WAP (86.98%) and one hand weeding at 3 WAP (74.68%). The weed free check was the most effective in controlling weeds (93.80%). Growth and productivity of the two cowpea lines were enhanced with increase in frequency of hand weeding when compared with the weedy check. Weeds reduced crop yield by 56.17%. The results of grain quality such as crude protein, lipid content, ash and crude fibre were also enhanced with increase in frequency of hand weeding. Generally, growth and yield were higher in Ife brown than Tvx3236. The research was limited to one cropping season and there is need for reproducibility for consistent of results. The study concluded that weeding twice and three times were found to be feasible since these frequencies of weeding times promoted effective weed reduction, higher growth, and yield and grain quality of the two cowpea varieties studied.Keywords: growth and yield, proximate composition, three hand weeding, cowpea productivity
Highlights
The concern for human health and safety coupled with the increase in herbicides resistant weeds necessitated the need to investigate the effect of frequency of hand weeding on weed suppression, productivity and grains quality in two varieties of cowpea (Tvx 3236 and Ife brown)
Cowpea constitutes a valuable source of protein (Ayodele and Yalwa, 2005).In Nigeria, especially in the South-eastern region, the production of cowpea is not widespread due to some constrains such as diseases, insect pests and parasitic weeds, low soil fertility coupled with the paucity of information on adapted varieties (Ogbuinya, 1997)
Broad-leaved weeds occurred in greater number than annual and perennial grasses. This could be attributed to lack of satisfactory weed control, most importantly where one hand weeding at 3WAP
Summary
The concern for human health and safety coupled with the increase in herbicides resistant weeds necessitated the need to investigate the effect of frequency of hand weeding on weed suppression, productivity and grains quality in two varieties of cowpea (Tvx 3236 and Ife brown). The higher biomass observed in the weedy check could be attributed to uncontrolled weeds measure on weed growth (Dadari, 2003; Olayinka and Etejere, 2015), Significant highest weed control efficiency was recorded in weed free check for both varieties (93.14-93.80%) followed by three hand weeding at 3, 6 and 9 WAP, two hand weeding at 3 and 6 WAP and one hand weeding at 3 WAP. The weedy check in Tvx 3236 and Ife brown recorded higher values of weed density of 10.91 gm-2 and 9.75 gm-2 respectively when compared to other treatments.
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