Assessment of Weed Management Practices on Weed Control and Productivity as Evidenced by Economics and Energetics Analysis in Groundnut

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during Kharif 2021 to assess the effect of various weed management practices in groundnut at Agronomy Instructional Farm, C. P. College of Agriculture, Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar on loamy sand soil. Among different treatments, two hand weeding at 20 and 40 DAS, interculturing and hand weeding at 15 and 30 DAS, post-emergence application of sodium acifluorfen 16.5 + clodinafop-propargyl 8 EC @ 165+80 g/ha and imazethapyr 35 WG + imazamox 35 WG @ 70 g/ha have recorded lower % of category wise weed density (sedges, grasses, broad leaf weeds and total weeds) resulting in significantly higher pod and haulm yield in two hand weeding at 20 and 40 DAS (1980 and 3082 kg/ha, respectively) which was found at par with interculturing and hand weeding at 15 and 30 DAS (1892 and 2950 kg/ha, respectively), post-emergence application of sodium acifluorfen 16.5 + clodinafop-propargyl 8 EC @ 165+80 g/ha (1835 and 2864 kg/ha, respectively) and imazethapyr 35 WG + imazamox 35 WG @ 70 g/ha (1800 and 2811 kg/ha, respectively) as compared to unweeded check (846 and 1333 kg/ha, respectively) apart from witnessing higher gross monetary returns, net monetary returns, net energy returns, energy use efficiency, energy productivity due to effective control of grasses, sedges, broad leaf and total weeds in these treatments as compared to unweeded check.