Productivity and profitability of direct-seeded rice under varying establishment methods and weed management practices

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (2016-17) to evaluate the effect of crop establishment and weed management practices on productivity, economics and resource-use efficiency of direct-seeded rice (DSR).The treatments included three crop establishment methods, viz.Zero-tillage-DSR+Sestarma co-culture (ZT-DSR+SCC), ZT-DSR+residue+&?staw'tf co-culture (ZT-DSR+R+SCC) and Conventional till-DSR+Sestarma co- culture (CT-DSR+SCC) assigned to main-plots and five weed management practices, viz.WMPj- pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)y& bispyribac-sodium (25 g/ha) 20 days after sowing (DAS), WMP2-pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)Jb pyrazosulfuron (30 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 hand weeding (HW) 45 DAS, WMP3- pendimethalin (1000 g/ha) Jb chlorimuron+metsulftiron (4+4 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 H W 45 DAS, WMP4- Weed-free and WMP5- Weedy check assigned to sub-plots.The experiment was laid-out in a three-time replicated split-plot design.Results showed that, ZT-DSR+R+SCC recorded higher growth parameters, such as dry matter accumulation (DMA), leaf area index (LAI), yield attributes and enhanced grain yield, net return and water productivity by 16.9,61.9 and 20% and 11.0,69.7 and 10.3% during 2016 and 2017, respectively over CT-DSR+SCC.Among weed management practices, pendimethalin (1000 g/ha) Jb chlorimuron+metsulfuron (4+4 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 HW 45 DAS recorded higher DMA, LAI, yield attributes and finally enhanced grain yield, net returns and water productivity by 31.9,39.2 and 33.3% and 35.7,36.6 and 37.5% during 2016 and 2017, respectively over weedy check.Hence, ZT-DSR+R+SCC along with pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)_/Z? chlorimuron+metsulfuron (4+4 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 HW 45 DAS could be adopted for higher yield, net returns and resource-use efficiency of DSR. © 2021 Indian Council of Agricultural Research. All rights reserved.