Enhancing growth, yield and nutrient use efficiency in hybrid maize through integrated nutrient and weed management strategies
2025
Elankavi, S | Reddy, B M | Venkatachalam, S R | Natarajan, S K | Ranjith , S Raja Ram | Jaya, Prabhavathi S | Senthamil, E
Maize is a nutrient-demanding crop and weed competition during the critical growth stages can result in yield losses ranging from 28 to 100 %. Addressing this issue requires research focused on integrating innovative agronomic strategies. Therefore, 2 years (kharif 2020 and 2021) field experiments were conducted with different nutrient and weed management strategies to investigate their combined effect on maize. Nutrient management strategies (M) were included as main-plots, whereas weed management strategies (S) in sub-plots under split-plot design with 3 replications. The findings indicated that application of 187.5 kg N from urea + 62.5 kg N supplementation from press mud + ZnSO4 at 37.5 kg/ha increased the uptake of N (by 35.56 %), P (27.36 %), K (33.84 %) and Zn (52.18 %), apparent N recovery (66.35 %) and grain yield (43.97 %) over the application of 250 kg N from urea. Similarly, hand hoeing at 15 and 30 days after sowing (DAS) had increased grain yield by 81.53 %, favoured by higher nutrient uptake and growth. Further, application of 187.5 kg N from urea + 62.5 kg N from press mud + ZnSO4 at 37.5 kg/ha in conjugation with hand hoeing at 15 and 30 DAS recorded the highest grain (7160 and 7490 kg/ha) and stover (10870 and 11620 kg/ha) yields during both the years. Subsequently, it was accompanied by application of 187.5 kg N from urea + 62.5 kg N from press mud + ZnSO4 at 37.5 kg/ha combined with pre-emergence (PE) application of atrazine at 1.0 kg a.i./ha at 3 DAS + post-emergence (PoE) application of topramezone at 25.2 g a.i./ha at 18 DAS with the highest net returns and benefit-cost ratio. Therefore, integrated urea (187.5 kg N) + press mud (62.5 kg N) + ZnSO4 (37.5 kg/ha) application with PE atrazine (1.0 kg a.i./ha at 3 DAS) + PoE topramezone (25.2 g a.i./ha at 18 DAS) as a weed management strategy could improve maize yield with higher economic viability.
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