Weed management for improvement in yield of aerobic rice

Abstract

Rice is a major food for more than half of the population in world and India. The changes in establishment methods like transplanted rice to direct seeded (aerobic) rice cultivation and chemical weed control instead of hand weeding are rising in most of the countries to reduce the cost of cultivation and consumption of irrigation water as the availability of labour and fresh water are decreasing day by day. Keeping these facts in view a field experiment was conducted to studyweed management practices impact on the improvement of yield of direct seeded rice at Instructional farm, BCKV, Mohanpur, West Bengal, India during Kharif, 2015 and 2016. The experimental results revealed lesser weed density in Propanil 35% EC @3000 g a.i. ha-1 and recorded grain yield of 4.47 t ha-1 as compared to other herbicides namely oxyflourfen and cyhalofop butyl. Under the direct seeded condition Propanil35% EC @3000 g a.i. ha-1 can be recommended instead of laborious hand weeding without any harmful effects on growth and yield of rice.