Vol. 11, Issue 2 (2022)

Author(s):
AH Paghadal, Laxman Kumawat, AR Ninama and JP Jadeja

Abstract:
A field experiment entitled “Evaluation of different weed management tactics in fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.)” was carried out during rabi season of 2019-20 at the Instructional Farm, Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh. The experiment comprising ten treatments was laid out in randomized block design with three replications. The results revealed that next to the, weed free condition, pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb silver black plastic mulch at 20 DAS, pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb HW & IC at 45 DAS, pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb fenoxaprop-ethyl 75 g/ha PoE at 45 DAS and Hand Weeding & Interculturing at 20 & 45 DAS were found comparable to weedfree to reduce weed population up to harvest and resulted in minimum dry weight of weeds, lower weed index and higher weed control efficiency as well as herbicidal efficiency index. The highest net return of ₹ 91,605/ha was realized with pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb silver black plastic mulch at 20 DAS followed by the treatments weedfree and pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb HW & IC at 45 DAS. Whereas, the highest BCR of 3.35 was obtained with the treatment pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb HW & IC at 45 DAS followed by pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb silver black plastic mulch at 20 DAS with BCR of 3.28. On the basis of the results obtained from present field study, it can be concluded that effective management of weeds along with profitable seed yield of rabi fennel can be obtained either by application of pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb silver black plastic mulch at 20 DAS or pendimethalin 900 g/ha PE fb HW & IC at 45 DAS. However, crop can be kept weedfree throughout crop period by hand weeding where sufficient laboures are available under south Saurashtra Agro-climatic conditions.