Weed Management for Enhancing the Growth Attributes and Yield of Pearl Millet

Abstract

The field experiment was conducted in the Experimental Farm, Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu during June - September, 2023 to study the weed management for enhancing growth attributes and yield of pearl millet. There are eleven weed management treatments viz., T1 - Atrazine @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre), T2 - Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre), T3 - Pretilachlor @ 0.45 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre), T4 - Atrazine @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + 2, 4-D @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE), T5 - Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + 2, 4-D @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE), T6 - Pretilachlor @ 0.45 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + 2, 4-D @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE), T7 - Atrazine @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE), T8 - Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE), T9 - Pretilachlor @ 0.45 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE), T10 - Two hand weeding at 15 and 30 DAS and T11 - Unweeded Control were laid out in randomized block design with three replications. Among the herbicide treatments, Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha-1 (PoE) (T8) recorded the higher growth attributes and yield of pearl millet viz., plant height (155.84 cm), leaf area index (4.97) and dry matter production (7822 kg ha-1), grain yield (3347 kg ha-1) and stover yield (5155 kg ha-1). The unweeded control (T11) recorded the lowest values of growth attributes, grain and stover yield of pearl millet.