Effect of integrated weed management practices on growth parameters, yield attributes and yield of Rabi groundnut

Abstract

Background:The main problems limiting production of groundnut are poor cultural practices as well as inadequate weed management. Besides competing for nutrients, soil moisture, sunlight, weeds inhibit pegging, pod development in groundnut and also interfere with harvest. Manual weeding, an age old practice for weed control in this crop is very laborious, time consuming and expensive, most importantly when there is dearth of manpower. In groundnut, chemical weed control has been found to be easier; less time consuming and more cost effective and efficient in reducing weed menace compared to hand weeding. By integrating man, mechanical and chemicals we can achieve better yield and also can retain the soil health. Hence the objective of this experiment was to study the effect of integrated weed management practices on the growth and yield of groundnut. Methods: In this experiment during 2020-21, different weed management practices and their effect on growth parameters, yield attributes and yield of groundnut at College of Agriculture, Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Hyderabad were surveyed. The experiment consisted of ten treatments laid out in randomised block design replicated thrice. Result: Among the different weed management practices growth parameters i.e., plant height, leaf area index and dry matter production, yield attributes i.e., number of pods per plant, filled pods per plant, hundred pod weight and hundred kernel weight and yield were significantly higher with intercultivation fb hand weeding at 20 and 40 DAS. Among herbicides, diclosulam 26 g ha -1 PE fb intercultivation at 20 DAS, pendimethalin + imazethapyr (pre-mix) 960 g ha -1 fb intercultivation at 20 DAS and sodium acifluorfen + clodinafop propargyl 250 g ha -1 PoE fb intercultivation at 40 DAS were superior to the all other treatments.