Brown manuring in conservation agriculture based maize-wheat-greengram cropping system: Effects on weed flora, crop yield, and profitability of maize Roy Sougata1,2,*, Shekhawat Kapila1, Rathore S.S.1, Sanketh G.D.1, Kumar Vipin1 1ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012 2International Potato Centre (CGIAR-CIP), India, Bihar *Corresponding author email: sougata.roy@cgiar.org
Online Published on 28 October, 2024. Abstract An experiment was conducted at the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, during 2021 and 2022 to evaluate the efficacy of brown manuring (BM) using Sesbania plants in controlling weeds and improving productivity in conservation agriculture-based maize. Treatments included conventional tillage maize (CT-M), conventional tillage maize with green manure from preceding greengram (CT-M+GM), zero tillage maize with residue retention at 3 t/ha (ZT-M+R), and zero tillage maize with Sesbania co-culture as brown manuring (ZT-M+BM), combined with five weed control treatments viz unweeded check (UWC), pre (atrazine + pendimethalin 750 g/ha, each) + 1 hand weeding (30 DAS), pre (atrazine + pendimethalin 750 g/ha, each) + post (tembotrione) 120 g/ha, pre (atrazine + pendimethalin 750 g/ha, each) + post (pre-mix of mesotrione + atrazine) 120 g/ha, weed free check in sub-plots. Results showed that ZT-M+BM caused 28.4% reduction in total weeds at 60 days after sowing compared to CT-M. Sequential application of atrazine (750 g/ha) and pendimethalin (750 g/ha) fb tembotrione (120 g/ha) effectively reduced weed population (78.5%) and dry weight (81.3%) compared to the unweeded control. Maize yield attributes were higher in ZT-M+BM than in CT treatments. The combination of atrazine, pendimethalin, and tembotrione with ZT-M+BM resulted in higher maize productivity (6.88 t/ha) and profitability ( 116,570/ha), comparable to the weed-free check. Thus, integrating zero tillage with Sesbania brown manure, and pre-emergence application of atrazine + pendimethalin followed by post-emergence tembotrione is recommended for effective weed control and high maize productivity of maize. Top Keywords Brown manuring, Integrated weed management (IWM), Resource Conservation Technologies (RCT), Conservation agriculture, HPPD-inhibitor, Cover Crop. Top |