INFLUENCE OF WEEDING ON THE PERFORMANCE OF WHITE MAIZE VARIETIES

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at agronomy farm of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during November 2017 to April 2018 to investigate the influence of weeding regimes on the performance of white maize varieties. The experiment comprised two varieties viz. YANGNUO-3000 and PSC-121, designated as V 1 and V respectively combined with four weed control treatments viz. T 0 = No weeding, T = One hand weeding at 60 DAS, T 2 = two hand weeding at 40 DAS and 60 DAS and T = Weed free after 40 DAS. The experiment was laid out in RCBD (factorial) with three replications. PSC-121 showed the superior performance in terms of plant height, leaf number plant , leaf area plant -1 , base circumference, cob setting node position from ground, cob length (18.35 cm), number of grain row cob -1 (13.56), number of grains cob -1 (468.75), weight of grains cob -1 (99.78 g), 100 seed weight (35.0837 g), grain yield (8.28 t ha ), stover yield (6.56 t ha -1 ) and harvest index (55.58%) over YANGNUO-3000. In case of weed control treatments, the highest plant height, leaf number plant -1 2 1 3 , leaf area plant , base circumference, cob setting node position from ground, cob length (17.95 cm), number of grain row cob -1 (14), number of grains cob -1 (464.54), weight of grains cob (111.44 g), 100 seed weight (37 g), grain yield (9.25 t ha -1 ) and stover yield (7.46 t ha ) were reported from T 3. All the parameters studied were found lowest with T . However, in terms of interaction, no single interaction was superior over other alternatives. But in most of the cases V 2 T showed the highest values regarding the maximum plant height, leaf number plant -1 3 , leaf area plant -1 0 -1 , cob length (18.82 cm), number of grains cob

(494.97), weight of grain cob -1 (112.35 g) and 100 grain weight (38 g). V showed the highest grain yield (9.33 t ha 1 -1 ), whereas, V 1 T 0 2 T 3 -1 showed the lowest grain yield (5.49 t ha ). The lowest weed density and weed biomass (12.17 no. m -2 and 4.33 g m ) was recorded from T . The highest weed control efficiency (94.38%) was also recorded from T 3 3 . In case of variety V showed better performance in terms of weed density, weed biomass and WCE (46.32%). 2 -1 -1 -2 -1 -1 -