WEED MANAGEMENT STUDIES IN TUBEROSE (Polianthes tuberosa L.) cv. Prajwal

One of the main constraints in the commercial cultivation of crops is weeds. Flower crops especially tuberose, a vertical growing, non spreading one still gets tougher competition by weeds. Weeds cause irreparable damage to crops by competing for water, nutrients, light and space, besides acting as alternate hosts to a number of pathogens and insect pests. Manual weeding is time consuming and costly hence, chemical weed control is one of the alternative methods to control weeds. In the present study, weed management in tuberose cv. Prajwal by chemicals was undertaken. Higher leaf area was recorded in weed free check treatment (64.99cm2), followed by pendimethalin 30 EC @ 1kg a.i./ha (63.59cm2 ) and alachlor 50EC @ 1.5kg a.i/ha (61.69cm2). The least number of days (94.00) were taken for first flowering under the weed free check treatment followed by pendimethalin 30EC @ 1kg a.i/ha (97.66days) and alachlor 50EC @ 1.5kga.i/ha (101.33 days). Among the different weed control treatments, under weed free check, maximum spike length of 84.18 cm was recorded which was statistically superior over rest of the treatments. Pendimethalin 30EC @ 1kg a.i/ha and alachlor 50EC @1.5kg a.i./ha were the next best which recorded the spike length of 81.22 and 80.85cm, respectively. The flower yield (t/ha) varied significantly (2.91 to 4.18 t/ha) among different treatments. The maximum flower yield was recorded in treatment weed free check (4.18t/ha, followed by pendimethalin 30EC @ 1 kg a.i./ha (3.67t/ha) and alachlor 50EC @ 1.5kg a.i/ha (3.54t/ha).