Email:
ddcsms@gmail.com
Address:
AICRP on Weed Management, B.A. College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand, Gujarat 388110, India
Cropping system, Fennel, Non-chemical approach, Sweet corn, Weed management
The area and demand of organic agriculture is increasing in Gujarat state and other states in India. The management of weeds is the most serious constraint in organic crop production systems. The integration of various non-chemical weed management practices provides effective weed control for realizing higher crop production. Hence a study was conducted to identify the effective non-chemical approaches for weed management in sweet corn-fennel cropping system. A field experiment was conducted during Kharif 2023 and Rabi 2023-24 on loamy sand soil at the farm of AICRP-Weed Management, B. A. College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand, Gujarat. The non-chemical weed management treatments that were effective in manaing weeds include: soil solarization followed by (fb) hand weeding (HW) + straw mulch 5 t/ha at 20 DAS + HW at 40 DAS in sweet corn; and hand weeding + straw mulch 5 t/ha at 20 DAS + HW at 50 and 75 DAS in fennel. These were at par with soil solarization fb plastic mulch at sowing fb HW at 40 DAS in sweet corn and plastic mulch at sowing fb HW at 50 and 75 DAS in fennel. The effective treatments recorded lower weed density and biomass, higher growth and yield attributes, higher sweet corn equivalent green cob, gross returns and benefit cost ratio as compared to other treatments.