Comparative Efficacy of Different Herbicidal Combinations on Weed Growth and Yield Attributes of Wheat

Weeds are the main biotic obstacles on wheat production, which can impair wheat productivity by up to 60%, if not handled under critical stages of crop life cycle. Chemical weed control through herbicides has been the most popular and effective method among farmers. The weed management using similar herbicides however has led to herbicide resistance in weeds. This requires the evaluation of newer herbicidal combinations for the control of weeds in wheat. Therefore, an experiment was conducted at Research Farm, Department of Agronomy, JNKVV, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh during the Rabi season of 2016-17 to evaluate the effect of post emergence application of herbicides on the weeds and yield of wheat. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with ten treatments comprising of eight herbicidal combinations along with a hand weeding and a weed check and replicated thrice. Observations on different weed parameters, growth parameters and yield of wheat were recorded. Among the different herbicidal combinations, the post emergence application of halauxifen-methyl ester + florasulam at 10.20 g/ha resulted in greatest suppression of weeds and had highest weed control efficiency (56.73%). It also led to highest growth in wheat which resulted in highest grain yield (5.81 t/ha) and harvest index (44.99%). From this study, it can be concluded that the post emergence application of halauxifen-methyl ester + florasulam at 10.20 g/ha can not only control weeds effectively but also increase the yield of wheat.