Effects of some integrated management options on parthenium interference in sorghum

Abstract

Parthenium is widely distributed across the uncropped areas of the tropics. It has slowly encroached into many crops and causes considerable yield loss. It heavily infests sorghum, which is widely cultivated by the resource-poor farmers in Africa and Asia. Its interference and management in sorghum in these cropping systems is not well understood. Therefore, this experiment was undertaken to determine the appropriate parthenium management techniques to use in sorghum crops. All the studied weeds, in combination with parthenium, offered greater competition to sorghum than parthenium alone. Similarly, under a composite stand of weeds, parthenium was inferior in competitiveness to the other weeds until 60 days after sowing (DAS); by 90 DAS, it could accumulate a higher dry weight due to its consistent growth. A pre-emergence treatment of atrazine (0.75 kg ha -1 ) with wheat straw mulch (5.0 t ha -1 ) brought about a consistent and significant reduction in the parthenium growth and, consequently, increased the sorghum yield by 90.8%. Cowpea intercropping with and without pendimethalin (1.0 kg ha -1 ) as a pre-emergence treatment could not control parthenium between 0 and 60 DAS, but could reduce the parthenium growth during the later period of 60-90 DAS, which resulted in a significant increase in sorghum growth. These intercropping treatments increased the sorghum grain yield by 156.2% and 142.4%, respectively, over the unweeded control and by 18.5% and 12.1%, respectively, over the weed-free control. These treatments also promoted a higher uptake of N, P, and K by the sorghum crop.Thus, cowpea intercropping was the most effective method for parthenium management vis-à-vis sorghum yield improvement, followed by cowpea intercropping with pendimethalin and then by atrazine as a pre-emergence treatment with wheat straw mulch.

Interference and economic threshold of horse purslane (Trianthema portulacastrum) in soybean cultivation in northern India

“…As a result, individual plant growth was not affected in the treatment of 200 horse purslane plants per m 2 and the plants could collectively accumulate a dry weight that was comparable with that in "all weeds including horse purslane". This corroborates that, for weed interference in a crop, although it is dependent on the weed density (Cussans et al 1986;Cousens 1987;Zimdahl 2004;Tadesse et al 2010), the weed dry weight is a more reliable estimate (Das 2008;Das et al 2010). Sometimes, a moderate infestation of weeds is as serious as a heavy infestation of weeds, which was substantiated by Akobundu (1987).…”

“…This corroborates that, for weed interference in a crop, although it is dependent on the weed density (Cussans et al . 1986; Cousens 1987; Zimdahl 2004; Tadesse et al . 2010), the weed dry weight is a more reliable estimate (Das 2008; Das et al .…”

Interference and management of parthenium: The world's most important invasive weed

“…Studies related to the integrated management of parthenium in field crops are lacking. However, a consistent and significant reduction in parthenium growth and consequent increase in crop yield with the use of synthetic and bioherbicides, cultural practices, straw mulch and intercropping (Table 9) has been documented (Pandya et al, 2004;Singh, 1991;Dass et al, 2005;Knox et al, 2006;Tadesse et al, 2010;Tamado and Milbery, 2004). No single approach to control parthenium is available as each method suffers from one or more limitations such as high cost, inefficiency, environmental safety, and temporary relief (Mahadevappa and Gautam, 2006).…”

“…Pandya et al, 2004;2 Atrazine þ hoeing 1.5 kg þ 1 Pre þ post. Singh, 1991 3 Uprooting þ Fusarium oxysporum suspension þ glyphosate Post Paul and Knox, 2007;Knox et al, 2006;Tamado and Milbery, 2004 4 Atrazine þ Cassia uniflora 1.0 kg þ 10% Post Tadesse et al, 2010;5 Atrazine þ wheat straw 0.75 kg þ 5.0 t Pre þ post. Dass et al, 2005; …”

Parthenium hysterophorus in Current Scenario: A Toxic Weed with Industrial, Agricultural and Medicinal Applications

“…So, post herbicides efficacy was better on rosette stage as compare to bolted stage of weed. Furthermore, alachlor, atrazine, chlorimuron, flumioxazin, fluometuron, imazaquin, norflurazon, quinclorac and simazine also showed significant herbicidal activity (Muniyappa and Krishnamurthy, 1976;Muniyappa et al, 1980;Adkins et al, 2005;Grichar, 2006;Reddy et al, 2007;Tadesse et al, 2010).…”