Weed Management Strategies at Farmers ’Field in Haryana

Abstract

India has achieved a record wheat production of 86.87 million tons during 2010–11. There is yield gap of 0.54 to 1.43 ton per ha across the wheat growing zones and weed problem is one of the important reasons for this. Not only weeds causes 25 to 30 percent yield loss in wheat crop but increases cost of cultivation, interfere with agricultural operations, impair quality, acts as alternate hosts for several insect pests, diseases, and nematodes. Weeds also account for about one third of total losses caused by the pests of wheat. The study was conducted during 2010–11 in randomly selected Hisar and Mohindergarh districts of Haryana in the North Western India. From each district, four villages and from each village 10 farmers were randomly selected, making the sample size 80. Majority of the farmers were middle aged and having more than 20 years of experience in agriculture. They sought advice from agriculture officers, fellow farmers and input dealers for growing wheat crop. They used optimum seed rate and grew more than one variety of wheat. The main crop rotations were bajra-wheat, cotton-wheat and guar-wheat. Manual harvesting was very common in the sampled area. The knowledge on weed management was good but the adoption was poor among the respondents. A few farmers used crop rotation, higher seed rate, retention of crop residue as method of weed control. Majority of the farmers used flat fan nozzle and applied same herbicide next year. The study recommends chemical control with uniform spray using flat fan nozzle and rotation of herbicides and crop rotations as effective strategies to control weeds.