Influence of Plant Population and Weed Control Treatments on Associated Weeds, Growth, Yield and Quality of Faba Bean

Abstract

To investigate the effect of faba bean plant populations (80000, 96000 and 120000 plants/feddan) resulted from the difference between hill spacing (30, 25 and 20 cm) and the efficiency of eight weed control treatments (butralin, metribuzin, oxadiargyl, each previous herbicides followed by one hand hoeing, two hand hoeing and unweeded check) on associated weeds, growth, yield and its attributes as well as chemical analysis. Two field experiments were conducted at the Experimental farm of El-Serw Research Station, Agricultural Research Center, Damietta Governorate, Egypt during winter seasons of 2015/2016 and 2016/2017. Main findings showed that increasing plant population from 80000 to 120000 plants/fedsignificantly decreased the broadleaved, grassy and total weeds dry weight by 46.32, 33.44 and 43.77% in the first season and by 45.99, 38.10 and 44.32% in the second season, respectively after 70 days from sowing. Plant population of 120000 plants/fed produced the highest values of plant height, dry weight/plant and LAI in both seasons. Moreover, sowing faba bean at 120000 plants/fedincreased seed yield/fed by 15.46 and 5.03% in the first season and 16.33 and 7.84% in the second season compared with 80000 and 96000 plants/fed, respectively. Two hand hoeing method significantly decreased the broadleaved, grassy and total weeds dry weight by 93.58, 99.24 and 95.68% in the first season and 92.62, 98.95 and 94.89% in the second season, respectively compared with the unweeded check. The results indicated that two hand hoeing method was the most superior treatment in increasing plant height, dry weight/plant and leaf area index at 70 and 90 days from sowing as well as yield, yield attributes and chemical composition of faba bean seeds followed by applying oxadiargyl herbicide with one hand hoeing treatment. It could be recommended that growing faba bean at plant population 120000 plants/fed integrated with two hand hoeing or oxadiargyl herbicide with one hand hoeing maximized seed yield per unit area.