Nutrient uptake by weeds and rice under different organic weed management practices

Abstract

Field study was conducted during the rabi, 2014 at wetlands farm of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore to assess the nutrient uptake by weeds and crops under different organic weed management practices. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replication and ten treatments. The study revealed that the unweeded check recorded the highest (10.1, 0.81 and 8.15 kg ha-1 at 20 DAT and 17.18, 1. 62 and 15.16 kg ha-1 at 30 DAT) nutrient removal of weeds. The weed control treatments showed a effective weed control and a gradual variation due to impose of different treatments at different stages. Nutrient uptake of rice crop with maximum uptake of nutrient and grain yield was recorded in mulching using biodegradable polyethelene sheets (78.2, 26.7, 100.29 and 5557 kg ha-1). Minimum depletion of N, P and K was observed in unweeded check. The highest benefit: cost ratio were recorded in hand weeding on 15 DAT followed by azolla inoculation on the same day.