Growth and yield of transplanted rice as affected by different cultivars and weed management practices

An experiment was conducted to study the competitive ability of rice cultivars in different weed management practices in transplanted rice. Five cultivars viz. BPT-5204, Malviya 36, HUBR2-1, Swarna and Adamchini were tested for three weed management practices viz. Hand weeding, Bispyribac-sodium@25g ha-1 and Weedy check. Among the different cultivars tested, the Swarna proved to be the best selection in producing higher grain (4.6 t ha-1) and straw yield (5 t ha-1) as well as harvest index (44.4%) due to more no. of tillers hill-1, dry matter accumulation, no. of panicles hill-1, no. of grains/panicle and test weight (20.3 g). The grain and straw yield in Swarnawere 130 and 43% higher than the lowest yielding cultivar Adamchini respectively. The best weed control was achieved by hand weeding thrice at 25, 55 and 85 DAT. The grain yield was 58 and 27 % higher through hand weeding than that of weedy check and Bispyribac-sodium applied treatment, respectively. To examine the performance of different rice cultivars in terms of growth and yield potential, evaluation of these cultivars is necessary with different weed management practices. Therefore, release of best weed suppressive rice cultivars for the farmers is important for improving the productivity as well as reduced cost of production for feeding the ever growing population of the country in the year to come.