Effect of pre and post emergence herbicidal application on weed dynamics and yield in lentil (Lens culinaris)

Abstract

Lentil is one of the early domesticated species belongs to genus Lens of the Fabaceae family. Among all the biotic factors, weed infestation is being an adverse impact on growth and yield due to lentil short stature, low branching, lack of protective canopy and it’s unable to smother the weeds. Although, applying pre emergence herbicides, in many circumstances early weed control herbicides are not that much efficient for attaining higher yields due to lentil is long duration crop and critical weed competition upto 40-60 DAS. Sequence use of pre and post-emergence herbicides and application of post-emergence herbicides may help in controlling the weeds at later stages of crop growth period. Therefore, the experiment was initiated to find out best weed control practices among 13 treatments considered in this research to get higher yields in lentil. Out of 13 treatments, weed free treatment produced significantly higher grain yield and straw yield and pendimethalin fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr and oxyflurofen fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr were statistically at par with weed free treatment. Weed densities and biomass of different weeds were recorded significantly lower in pendimethalin fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr, oxyflurofen fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr and imazethapyr + imazomox at 60 DAS and at harvest. Ultimately, it can be concluded that, application of pendimethalin fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr and oxyflurofen fb quizalofop-ethyl + imazethapyr in lentil brings in enhancing grain yield and achieving more net returns apart from suppressing the weeds through higher weed control efficiency and lower weed index.