Assessment of bioefficacy of novel pyroxasulfone for controlling weeds in summer maize

An experiment was conducted during summer 2020 at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, UAS, GKVK, Bangalore to study the bio-efficacy of pyroxasulfone for controlling weeds in summer maize. Treatment consisted of pre-emergence application of pyroxasulfone 85% WG at 125, 150, 175 and 300 g/ ha and was compared with atrazine 50% WP at 2000 g/ha along with unweeded control and weed-free treatment. Treatments were arranged under randomised complete block design with 3 replications. Weeds caused yield reduction to the tune of 32% in summer maize. Results revealed that application of pyroxasulfone reduced weed-crop interference effectively which was significantly superior over atrazine. The per cent increase in maize yield due to pyroxasulfone treatment in its corresponding doses of 125, 150, 175 and 300 g/ha was 21, 18, 14 and 7%, respectively over unweeded control treatment. Increasing the dose of pyroxasulfone beyond 125 kg/ha reduced the yield of maize.