Effect of weed management practices on growth, yield and economics of chickpea

Abstract

The field experiment conducted during Rabi season of the year 2017 at the Instructional Farm, Swami Vivekanand University, Sagar Madhya Pradesh. The nine weed control treatments comprising of three as pre-emergence viz., Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1, Oxyfluorfen @ 0.100 kg a.i. ha-1 and Metribuzin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 and three as post–emergence viz., Imazethapyr @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1., Propaquizafop @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 and Quizalofop-ethyl @ 0.40 kg a.i. ha-1, hand weeding twice at 30 and 45 DAS, weed free and weedy check, were laid out in randomized block design with 3 replications. The results indicated that among herbicides, application of Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 as pre-emergence recorded higher values of growth parameters viz., plant height, number of branches per plant, dry weight per plant, No. of nodules and weight of nodules, yield attributes viz., number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, test weight, biological yield/plot, seed yield/plot and straw yield/plot, straw yield (3205.60 kg ha-1), gross monetary returns (117667 Rs. ha-1), net Monetary returns (90902 Rs. ha-1) and benefit cost ratio (4.53) were recorded under application of Oxyfluorfen @ 0.100 kg a.i. ha-1 as compared to rest of the treatments.