Weed management with different herbicid combinations in winter groundnut under red sandy loam soils of Odisha, India

A trial was conducted in red soils at the Research farm of AICRP on Groundnut, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, to study the effect of different weed control treatments on groundnut yield during two consecutive Rabi (winter) seasons of 2018-19 to 2019-20. Amongst the different herbicides, ready mix application of pendimethalin + imazethapyr along with manual weeding efficiently controlled weed density and weed dry matter of all types of weeds. It also incurred significantly higher yield attribute and yield of groundnut over all the other herbicidal treatments, viz. branch/plant (5 and 4.8), number of pods/plant (19.3 and 17.2), pod yield (2.63 and 2.35 t/ha) and haulm yield (4.10 and 3.93 t/ha), net returns of 82370 and 66740/ha and B: C (2.7 and 2.3) in 2018-19 and 2019-20, respectively. The lowest weed dry matter, weed density and weed index and WCE were recorded with this treatment at different stages of the crop growth period. The results obtained from the trial suggested that ready mix application of pendimethalin + imazethapyr along with manual weeding was the best measure to control all types of weeds effectively along with the highest pod yield.