Vol. 12, Issue 2 (2023)

Author(s):
Pooja Sharma, SB Agrawal, A Shukla, Ashish Gupta, R Bajpai and RB Singh

Abstract:
A field experiment was carried out at Agroforestry research farm, Department of Forestry, JNKVV, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, to assess the yield losses in rainfed rice due to weed competition under different pruning intensity of Dalbergia sissoo based Agroforestry system. Rice performance in an agroforestry system with four pruning regimes (light (25%), moderate (50%), heavy (75%), and no pruning) were compared with rice grown in open condition and four weed management treatments (W₁: Pendimethalin@ 1.0 lit/ha as PE, W₂: Pendimethalin@ 1.0 lit/ha as PE fb Bispyribac sodium @ 25 g/ha PoE, W₃: Two hand weeding at 30 and 60 DAS and W₄: Weedy check). These treatments were arranged in a strip plot design replicated thrice. Results of study reveal that the maximum plant height (80.4 cm), effective tillers per metre row length (315), length of the panicale (25.4 cm) grain and straw yields (39.2 and 74.3 q ha^-1), respectively were observed under heavy pruning (75%) which was significantly at par with moderate pruning. (50%). The lowest yields of grain and straw were found under light pruning as well as no pruning. When compared with open condition (solitary rice), heavy, moderate, light, and no pruning treatments each reduced rice grain yield by 19%, 25%, 36%, and 39 percent, respectively. Weed management practises significantly increased rice yield and yield contributing factors when compared to weedy check plot.