Aurobindo Mohanta, Basudev Behera, Stuti D. Behera, Arun Kumar Pradhan, Anyesha Anandita Prusty, Monalisha Panda, Koushik Sar and A.K. Behura
Abstract
The experiment comprising four weed management practices, i.e. W1- Atrazine 1.0 kg/ha(pre-emergence), W2- Tembotrione 90g / ha + 2,4-D 400g/ha (post-emergence, tank-mix), W3- W1+manual weeding at 21 days after sowing (DAS), W4- Hoeing and weeding at 21 DAS allocated to main plots and five nutrient management practices, i.e. N1-100% Soil Test Based Nitrogen (STN) as chemical source, N2-75% STN +25% N as Farm yard manure (FYM), N3- 75% STN +25% N as vermicompost (VC), N4- 75% STN +12.5% N as FYM +12.5% N as VC and N5- 50% STN +25% N as FYM +25% N as VC allocated to sub plots were tried in split plot design with three replications at Bhubaneswar, India during rainy season of 2022 and 2023 to study effect of treatments on weed growth and yield of husked baby cob. Baby corn crop variety âSyngenta G-5414â was sown on 7 July 2022 and 13 July 2023 during the first and the second year, respectively. The integrated weed management comprising pre-emergence spraying of atrazine 1.0 kg/ha followed by manual weeding at 21 DAS recorded the minimum weed density of 6.3 and 7.9/0.25 m2 quadrate and weed biomass of 5.80 and 5.50 g/0.25 m2 quadrate during 2022 and 2023, respectively and proved to be significantly superior to other weed management practices. Averaged over seasons, atrazine 1.0 kg/ha+ one hand weeding reduced weed density by 35,56 and 60% and weed biomass by 31,37 and 70%, respectively, compared to atrazine 1.0 kg/ha, tembotrione+2,4-D 90+400g/ha and hoeing and weeding at 21 DAS, respectively. The combined effect of weed management by pre-emergence spraying of atrazine 1.0 kg/ha followed by manual weeding at 21 DAS and nutrient management through 100% STN (chemical) was the best with husked baby cob yield of 9.52 and 9.28/ha during 2022 and 2023, respectively. The treatment combinations viz, weed management by pre-emergence spraying of atrazine 1.0 kg/ha followed by manual weeding at 21 DAS and nutrient management through 75% STN as chemical + 25% as VC (W3N3) during both the years and atrazine 1.0 kg/ha with 100% STN as chemical (W1N1) and 75% STN as chemical + 25% STN as VC (W1N3) in 2023 remained at par. Among weed management practices, hoeing and weeding at 21 DAS was the most ineffective with weed index of 30.9 and 25.5% during 2022 and 2023, respectively.