Indian Journal of Weed Science

Field experiments were conducted in Punjab, India in 2020 and 2021 to study the integrated effects of row spacing, cultivars (variety) and weed control treatments on weed suppression and maize green fodder yield. The variety ‘J-1007’ had higher maize equivalent fodder yield than the variety ‘J-1006’ based on the averaged weed control treatments. Irrespective of the row spacing, the application of PoE herbicide tembotrione provided the highest maize equivalent fodder yield among all the weed control treatments and this treatment produced maize equivalent fodder yield of 43.28 and 47.97 t/ha for J-1006 and J-1007, respectively in narrow 22.5 cm row spacing. Maize + cowpea intercropping provided similar level of weed control and yield as atrazine irrespective of the row spacing. The variety ‘J-1007’ in 22.5 cm row spacing coupled with tembotrione accrued significantly lowest weed dry matter as compared to other treatment combinations. The study concluded that green fodder yield of maize cultivars could be improved by exploring their competitiveness through narrow row spacing and application of post-emergence herbicide tembotrione for weed control in maize fodder.