Enhancing productivity and profitability through herbicidal weed control in blackgram

Field experiment was conducted at College of Agriculture, Tikamgarh during 2015-16 to assess the effectiveness of different herbicides for weed control in blackgram. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design replicated thrice with ten treatments consisted of pre emergence pendimethalin at 1 kg/ha and alachlor at 1 kg/ha, post emergence imazethapyr at 60, 75, 100, 150 g/ha at 14 DAS, quizalofop ethyl at 75 g/ha at 14 DAS, hand hoeing at 30 DAS, hand weeding at 20 and 40 DAS and weedy check. The results revealed that hand weeding twice was most effective and recorded minimum weed density and dry weight among all the treatments. Application of imazethapyr at all the rates of application from 60 to 150 g/ha significantly reduced the weed intensity and weed dry weight and registered higher weed control efficiency as compared to quizalofop-ethyl followed by pendimethalin, alachlor and hand hoeing. Two hand weeding at 20 & 40 DAS recorded the highest seed yield (1410 kg/ha) among all the treatments followed by imazethapyr at all the rates of application. The net monetary return was maximum under hand weeding twice followed by imazethapyr at 150 g, 100 g and 75 g/ha but the benefit cast ratio was the highest under imazethapyr @ 75 g/ha. A strong negative correlation between weed dry weight and yield of blackgram clearly indicated that weed dry weight accounted for 73.20% variation in yield of blackgram.