Vol. 16 No. 1
Study the combined effect of brown manuring with post emergence herbicide on weed management in planted sugarcane
Author(s): S. ANITTA FANISH AND T. RAGAVAN
Abstract: Field experiments were conducted to study the combined effect of brown manuring with post emergence herbicide on weed management in planted sugarcane.Weeds are one of the major biotic stress and its management was the very costliest agronomic input in the successful crop production. In sugarcane, weeds alone causes yield reduction up to 40%. Indiscriminate use of herbicides can accelerate weed flora shift and resistance besides causing environmental pollution and non-target toxicities. Brown manuring is a no till version of green manuring using a post emergence herbicide. BM had multiple benefits including weed management. In Sugarcane its wider inter row space and its initial slow growth would allow to formulate an integrated weed management (IWM) module with brown manuring and herbicide. In this study, for Brown Manuring (BM), Sesbania aculeate was grown as intercrop with sugarcane for initial 35 days, and then, knocked down by spraying of 2,4-D.Treatments included BM of sesbania and in- situ incorporation of sesbania, with one intercultural operation at 90 DAP (Hand hoeing or Post emergence application of Metribuzin or halosulfuron). In addition, three controls, namely atrazine 1 kg a.i. ha-1 + power weeeding at 45 and 75 DAP, hand weeding twice and unweeded control were also adopted and the experiments were laid out in a randomized block design with three replications. A pre-emergence application of pendimethalin 2.0 kg a.i.ha-1 was made in all sesbaniaraisedplots.The results showed that application of pendimethalin 2.0 kg ha-1 + Sesbania (brown manuring) + hand hoeing at 90 DAP recorded minimum number of weeds and weed dry weight.The higher weed control efficiency (78.96 %), cane yield (100.5 t ha-1) and benefit cost ratio (2.72) were found with PE application of Pendimethalin + Sesbania (Brown manuring) + hand hoeing at 90 DAP compared to POE herbicides and in situ incorporation of Sesbania.
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