Effect of weed control methods on growth and yield of maize in western zone of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Field trials were conducted at Department of Agronomy during rainy (kharif) seasons of 2018 and 2019 at Agricultural College and Research Institute, TNAU, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India, to study the effect of different weed management practices on growth, development and yield of maize crop. The experiment was laid out in randomised block design with 10 weed management practices replicated thrice. The results revealed that hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS was significantly superior in recording higher plant height (254.56 cm and 258.2 cm), stem girth (13.68 cm and 13.76 cm plant-1), leaf area index (7.31 and 7.24), chlorophyll index (52.4 and 53.5) and dry matter production (12147 and 12435 kg ha-1) at 90 DAS as compared to other weed management practices and it was found to be at par with PE (pre emergence) atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE (early post emergence) topramezone 25.2 g a.i. ha-1 and PE atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE tembotrione 122 g a.i. ha-1 during 2018 and 2019. Also,hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS, PE atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE topramezone 25.2 g a.i. ha-1and PE atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE tembotrione 122 g a.i. ha-1took significantly more number of days for the crop to reach different phenological stages compared to rest of the treatments during both the years of study. Hand weeding twice at 20 and 45 DAS recorded significantly higher grain and stover yield which was comparable with PE atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE topramezone 25.2 g a.i. ha-1and PE atrazine a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE tembotrione 122 g a.i. ha-1. Significantly higher biological yield and harvest index was recorded in hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS which was on par with PE atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE topramezone 25.2 g a.i. ha-1 and PE atrazine 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 fb EPOE tembotrione 122 g a.i. ha-1 during both the years of experimentation.