Effect of new generation herbicides on weed management, corm yield and economics of elephant foot yam [Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (Dennst.) Nicolson]

Abstract

Weed infestation may cause yield reduction up to 100% in elephant foot yam [Amorphophallus paeoniifolius (Dennst.) Nicolson] due to very slow initial sprouting, establishment and growth. At present, manual weeding is popular but expensive, tedious, and time-consuming. An experiment was conducted during May 2017 – January 2018 at ICAR- Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India to determine the effects of different herbicides in elephant foot yam to find out alternatives to manual weeding and to formulate an economical weed management schedule. Among the treatments, pendimethalin followed by two sprays of glyphosate resulted better growth, pseudo stem height and girth, canopy spread, leaf area, leaf are index, weight of corm, gross and net returns; closely followed by weed free control and new generation herbicide combination treatment tembotrion followed by two sprays of propaquizafop. The sprouting of elephant foot yam was not significantly affected by the herbicide application. Microbial populations were not affected by application of different herbicides indicating no residual effect of the herbicides in the field at the time of harvesting.