Evaluation of new herbicides for weed control and crop safety in rainy season sorghum
2012
Mishra, J.S. | Rao, S.S. | Dixit, Anil
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is a staple cereal grown during both rainy (Kharif) and post-rainy (Rabi) seasons in the semi-arid and arid parts of India on marginal and least fertile soils where only few other crop can survive. Weeds are a major deterrent in increasing the sorghum productivity, especially during rainy season due to wider row spacing, slow initial crop growth rate, and congenial weather conditions for weed growth. Sorghum is mostly grown in rainfed areas, where soil moisture and nutrients are the most limiting factors. Weeds compete with sorghum for light, soil moisture and nutrients (Burnside and Wicks 1969, Smith et al. 1990) and reduce the grain yield by 15 to 83% depending on crop cultivars, nature and intensity of weeds, spacing, duration of weed infestation and environmental conditions (Mishra 1997, Stahlman and Wicks 2000). Therefore, appropriate weed management would help to improve sorghum productivity and input use-efficiency. Presently atrazine as preemergence is the most widely used herbicide for weed control in grain sorghum. However, as sorghum is grown in moisture stress conditions, lack of soil moisture may decrease the efficacy of pre-emergence herbicides. There is no effective post-emergence herbicide for broad- spectrum weed control in sorghum. The present experiment was therefore conducted to evaluate new herbicides for weed control and crop safety in grain sorghum.
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