Effect of spacing and weed management on the energy budgeting in sunflower

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during kharif 2016-17 to investigate the effect of spacing and weed management on the energy use. The experiment consisted of two factors viz. spacing as horizontal factor and weed management as vertical factor. The experiment was laid out in strip plot design replicated thrice. Five horizontal factors as spacing and five vertical factors as weed management practices were adopted. Among the spacing, the treatment S4 (90cm×20cm) used higher input energy. The treatment viz. W3 (weeding by power weeder twice) among the weed management practice used higher input energy and S2 (75cm×25cm) gave higher output energy, net energy, energy use efficiency and energy productivity. Among the weed management practices, high output energy, net energy, energy use efficiency and energy productivity were observed with W4 (hand weeding twice at 15 DAS and 30 DAS). Specific energy was higher with S4 (90cm×20cm) and W5 (weedy check).