Comparison of Organic Mulches with Various Weed Control Strategies for Weed Management in Maize
Comparison of Organic Mulches with Various Weed Control Strategies for Weed Management in Maize
Huzaifa Hammad1, Bakhtiar Gul1, Haroon Khan1, Muhammad Fawad1*, Hafizullah2, Haidar Ali3 and Tamana Bakht4
ABSTRACT
A field study was conducted to investigate and compare the performance of organic living mulches (legumes cover cropping) with conventional weed control practices in maize crop. The experiment was carried at the New Developmental Farm, the University of Agriculture, Peshawar during Rabi season 2021, using Randomized complete block (RCB) design with ten treatments, replicated three times. Data was recorded on days to 50 % tasseling, silking, and maturity, plant height, fresh weed biomass, dry weed biomass, weed species composition, biological yield, thousand grain weight, grain yield, harvest index and cost benefit ratio. The results showed that both the herbicides (Atrazine and Stomp 300 EC) were effective in weed control having lowest fresh weed biomass of 29.31 and 32.65 kg ha-1, respectively. Maximum biological yield (8309.7 kg ha-1) was recorded in cowpea as living mulch while minimum biological yield (5909 kg ha-1) was recorded in control treatment. Similarly, maximum grain yield (2883.3 kg ha-1) was recorded in mung-bean as living mulch and minimum grain yield (2364.7 kg ha-1) was recorded in cucumber used as living mulch. Similarly maximum days to maturity (129.67) was noted in water melon, followed by cowpea as living mulch took (117.67). Maximum number of grains were recorded in cowpea (270.33), while minimum number of grains were recorded in control. Cost benefit ratio revealed that hand weeded treatment excelled among all the other applied treatments with a ratio of (1: 5.44) followed by water melon mulch having ratio of (1: 5.04) and Stomp 330 EC (1: 3.74). It is concluded that herbicides followed by living mulches of cowpea and mung-bean significantly improved growth and yield attributes of maize crop. Whereas, the cost-benefit analyses revealed that hand weeding and watermelon mulch were the most economical. However, for sustainable maize cultivation integration of hand-weeding and legume mulches is the best choice.
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