Managing Plant Population and Competition in Field Crops

Abstract

Maintaining the optimum plant population and competition in field crops right from germination to harvesting is one of the important tasks for efficient utilization of resources and to get highest economical yield. To know the about the inter and intra plant competition and its ultimate response on plant density dynamics, review was done on the topic managing plant population and competition on field crops. It was found that the optimum plant population is highly dependent on the various factors like crop inputs, environmental condition and managerial factors and the competition within and between the crop plants. The optimum plant population for any crop in given locality is usually determined by trial and error method. Managing the input level and environmental condition as well as many agronomical approaches can maintain the plant population to a desired level. Proper method of sowing, using good quality seed and right seed rate, optimum sowing depth, sowing seed in good quality soil, plant size and architecture, proper fertilization and irrigation, gap filling and reseeding, over-seeding and thinning, double transplanting and use of tolerance variety can be used to obtain optimum plant population.

Effect of Herbicide Application on Weed Density and Yield of Wet Direct Seeded Spring Rice at Sundarpur, Nepal

“…Effective tillers per square meter, number of grains per panicle, grain sterility percentage and grain yield were significantly influenced by herbicides application (Table 6). The more number of panicle bearing tillers, grains per panicle might be attributed due to better nutrient acquisition, fertilization and translocation of photo assimilates under the influence of efficient weed control treatments (Hussain et al 2008, Mahajan et al 2009, Akbarran and Ali 2011, Pant and Sah 2020. These results are in line with those obtained by Mann et al (2008) who reported that sequential application of herbicides caused an increase in number of kernels per panicle in dry seeded rice due to better utilization of nutrient by crop.…”

Effects of Plant Population Density on the Growth, Survival Rate and Yield of Common Beans (Phaseolus spp.) Cultivated under Tropical Climate

“…Competition occurs due to the presence of neighboring plants which reduces the availability of resources for plants, thus reducing the overall plant growth and yield (Paul and James, 2019). Competition is the key factor in maintaining the plant communities (Pant and Sah, 2020) since, during competition, the plants with lower adaptability skills are suppressed by the higher adaptive plants. Similar results were observed in this experiment for both trials, as shown in Table 3.…”