Effect of different weed management methods on yield and quality of menthol mint (Mentha arvensis L.)

Abstract

Menthol mint is a major source of natural menthol and dementholized oil. It has high economic importance among the crops grown in India. Menthol mint shows very slow growing at initial stages which makes it a poor competitor with weeds. During the experiment both monocot and dicot weeds get emerge and compete with the crop it leading to considerable yield loss. Effect of weed management methods on production of herb, oil yield and quality of menthol mint was evaluated. The study was initiated at KRCCH, Arabhavi during the year 2017-18 to standardize the integrated weed management in menthol mint to obtained high herbage and quality essential oil yield to fulfill the needs of farmers of northern dry zone of Karnataka. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design having three replications with 12 treatments. The different weed management methods were tried as treatments. The results showed that all weed management treatments significantly reduced weed density (05.66 and 33.66/m2, respectively) and weed dry weights (7.94 and 23.66 g/m2, respectively) at 30 and 60 DAP were recorded in pre-emergent spray of oxyfluorfen 23.5 EC 0.25 kg a.i./ha and un-weeded condition recorded maximum of these values. Among the different weed management treatments pre-emergent spray of oxyfluorfen 23.5 EC 0.25 kg a.i./ha recorded significantly maximum fresh herb (17.69 t/ha), shade dried herb (14.63 t/ha) and essential oil yield (107.62 kg/ha) and un-weeded recorded significantly minimum fresh herb (5.95 t/ha), shade dried herb (4.16 t/ha) and essential oil yield (38.99 kg/ha). The yield per plot is highest in pre-emergent spray of oxyfluorfen due to minimum weed density and weed dry weight per square meter.