NUTRIENT REMOVAL PATTERN OF WEEDS DUE TO TRADITIONAL WEED MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN MAIZE

Abstract

Weeds compete with crops for nutrients and nutrient removal by weeds is a serious problem in a widely spaced crop like maize. Traditional weed management methods offer a wide scope for reducing the nutrient removal by weeds by effective management methods. The field experiment was conducted to study the influence of traditional weed management methods on nutrient removal by weeds in maize at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during Kharif 2017. Common salt (30%), vinegar (20%), and a traditional formulation containing cow urine, lemon fruit, dried fruits of Indian walnut (Terminalia chebula) in two concentrations @7.5 and 10 l ha-1 were used as a post-emergence spray with or without hand weeding on 45 DAS. Hand weeding at 20 and 45 DAS and weedy checks were also maintained for comparison. At 30 DAS, lower nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium removal by weeds (0.68, 0.08, and 0.45 kg ha-1 ) were observed in hand weeding twice on 20 and 45 DAS. Hand weeding twice on 20 and 45 DAS registered significantly lower nitrogen (0.2 and 1.40 kg ha-1), phosphorus (0.02 and 0.19 kg ha-1) and potassium (0.21 and 1.48 kg ha-1 ) removal which was merely comparable with postemergence application of vinegar 20% + hand weeding on 45 DAS (0.71 and 1.83 kg ha-1; 0.07 and 0.25 kg ha-1; 0.73 and 1.94 kg ha-1) at 60 DAS and harvest. All the traditional weed management methods resulted in lower nutrient removal by weeds compared to the weedy check.