Economic feasibility of weed management practices in fenugreek

A field experiment on economic feasibility of weed management practices in fenugreek was conducted during rabi season of 2007–08 and 2008–09 at National Research Centre on Seed Spices, Ajmer (Rajasthan) for finding suitable method of weed control. The experiment was laid in randomised block design with three replications. Results revealed that besides weed free treatment significantly higher plant height, number of branches per plant, number of nodules per plant, dry weight of nodules per plant and dry matter accumulation per plant at (60 DAS, 90 DAS and at harvest) were recorded with the pre-emergence application of oxadiargyl @ 75 g/ha + 1 hand weeding at 45 days after sowing (DAS) but pre-emergence application of pendimethalin @ 1 kg/ha + 1 hand weeding at 45 DAS was at par with it. Similarly, yield attributes like number of pods per plant, length of pod, pod weight, number of seeds per pod and test weight as well as seed and straw yields of fenugreek were higher with pre-emergence (PE) application of oxadiargyl @ 75 g/ha + 1 hand weeding at 45 DAS. Besides weed-free treatment, the lowest dry weight of weed at harvest, weed index and the highest weed control efficiency was obtained under pre-emergence application of oxadiargyl @ 75 g/ha + 1 hand weeding at 45 DAS. The highest gross and net returns were obtained in weed free treatment followed by pre-emergence application of oxadiargyl @ 75 g/ha + 1 hand weeding at 45 days after sowing but highest B: C ratio (4.38) was recorded with pre-emergence application of oxadiargyl @ 75 g/ha + 1 hand weeding at 45 DAS.