Chemical control, Hand weeding, Lentil, Pendimethalin, Weed

The effect of chemical weed management practices in lentil was studied during 2010-11 and 2011-12 at Agra (Utter Pradesh). The treatments included: control, pendimethalin 0.50 kg/ha, pendimethalin 0.75 kg/ha, pendimethalin 1.0 kg/ha, pendimethalin 1.25 kg/ha, pendimethalin 1.50 kg/ha and hand weeding. All herbicidal treatments including hand weeding significantly controlled the weeds. Among all the treatments hand weeding gave the highest weed control (84.8%) and produced lower weed biomass (54.0 g/m2). It gave maximum net income (Rs. 30,850) with CBR of 1:4.4. Pendimethalin 1.5 kg/ha controlled the weeds effectively but germination of seeds were affected. Highest grain yield (1.50 t/ha) was recorded from hand weeding plot with 48.6 and 52.0% increase in yield during 2011 and 2012, respectively.