Irrigated maize, Manually-operated weeders, Mechanical weeding, Time saving

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate The weed control efficiency and time saving on weeding operation of different manually operated weeders in irrigated maize. Among the manually operated weeders evaluated, wheel hoe registered an yield increase of 154% over control, took less time (71.4 hr/ha), covered maximum area with minimum cost of operation (` 714.3/ ha) and also required less number of mandays to complete the weeding operation (5.46 man days/ha). Among the mechanical weeders, the highest grain yield of 4.8 t/ha was recorded with wheel hoe weeding twice on 25 and 45 DAS and on par with pre-emergence application of atrazine 0.5 kg/ha on 3 DAS followed by one hand weeding on 45 DAS.