JUTE GROWTH AND YIELD INFLUENCED BY INTEGRATED WEED MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Weed infestation is one of the major biotic stresses of jute crop reducing jute productivity. Integrated weed management has emerged as a profitable and environment friendly approach for managing the weeds in crop field. To this point of view an experiment was conducted at the research field of the Department of Agronomy, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka during the period from April-August 2019 to study the effect of integrated weed management in jute. In the experiment, the treatment consisted of twelve weed management, viz., T1 = weedy check, T2 = one hand weeding, T3 = two hand weeding, T4 = straw mulch, T5 = mungbean and jute intercropping, T6 = pre-emergence herbicide (pendimethalin @ 600 g ha−1 at 2 DAS), T7 = post-emergence herbicide (quizalofop-ethyl @ 50 g ha−1 at 20 DAS), T8 = pre-emergence and post-emergence herbicide, T9 = pre-emergence herbicide + one hand weeding, T10 = mungbean + pre-emergence herbicide, T11 = mungbean with post-emergence herbicide, and T12 = mungbean with pre-emergence and post-emergence herbicide. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Among the weed species, maximum relative weed density was observed for Cynodon dactylon (42%) at 30 DAS which was followed by Echinochloa colona (32%) and Eleusine indica (20%). Weeding treatments significantly reduced the weed population. The results of the experiment revealed that different agronomic characteristics and yield of jute and mungbean were significantly differing due to different weed management approaches. Plant height, leaves plant−1, plant diameter, fiber weight plant−1, stick weight plant−1, fiber yield, stick yield and harvest index of jute was highest with the weed management by using pre-emergence herbicide along with one hand weeding (T9). One the other hand, lowest growth and yield performance was observed in control and mungbean intercropping with post-emergence herbicide. The results also revealed that intercropping mungbean with post-emergence herbicide application for weed management in jute gives the highest gross, net return and the highest benefit-cost ratio.