2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue 6

author(s)
Govind Kumar, Sangita Mehta, Seema Kumari and Sushil Kumar Singh

abstract
Maize (Zea mays L.) crop is severely affected by wide range of narrow and broad leaved weeds. Wider row spacing particularly in winter season and other factors of weed infestation like stages, intensity, nature and duration leads to reduction in yield up to the extent of 30-95 percent (Pandey et al. 2001 and Singh et al. 2009) ^{[1, 2]}. Under prevailing situation of weed infestation in rabi maize, farmers need alternate production system using chemical and cultural weed management practices that are more efficient, less labour consuming and offer quick response enabling farmers to produce more yield at lowest cost. Keeping this in view, an On Farm Trial (OFT) was conducted to study the effect of weed management practices on yield and economics of rabi maize on farmers field of Purnea district at three locations of Kasba and Jalalgarh block with 10 replications during rabi season of 2019-20 and 2020-21. The trial was laid out in randomized block design and treatments comprised of management options: Farmer’s practice-Atrazine 50% WP @ 1.25 kg a.i./ha PE (T₁), Tembotrione 34.4% SC @120 g a.i/ha + Atrazine 500 g/ha (tank mix) PoE at 25 DAS (T₂), Topramezone 33.6% sc @ 25 g a.i/ha + Atrazine 500 g/ha (tank mix) as PoE at 25 DAS (T₃) and un-weeded check (T₄) treatments. The test variety was P 3355, at each location, highly preferred by the farmers of this region. The result revealed that significantly lower weed density (29.20 /m²), lower weed dry weight (10.12 g /m²) with higher weed control efficiency (89.64) were recorded at 45 DAS when Tembotrione 34.4% SC @120 g a.i/ha + Atrazine 500 g/ha (tank mix) applied at 25 days after sowing. Due to effective weed management the same treatment (T₁) recorded highest grain yield (104.50 q/ ha) when compared with farmer’s practice and Topramezone 33.6% SC @ 25 g a.i/ha + Atrazine 500 g/ha (tank mix) applied at 25 DAS. The net return (Rs. 141075/ ha) and benefit: cost ratio (3.65) was also recorded significantly higher under treatment receiving Tembotrione 34.4% SC @ 120 g a.i/ha + Atrazine 500 g/ha (tank mix) at 25 days after sowing (T₂) when compared with other treatments.