Tembotrione for weed management in kharif maize and its residual effect on succeeding wheat crop in western Indo-gangetic plain of India

Weeds are the major biotic factor which reduces productivity of maize crop. Therefore, field trials were conducted during kharif seasons of 2015 and 2016, and rabi seasons of 2015–16 and 2016–17 with the hypothesis that combinations of tembotrione with different herbicides would provide effective weed control of complex weed flora with higher maize productivity and economic returns. Seventeen treatments comprising combinations of pre (atrazine, alachlor) and post-emergence herbicides (tembotrione, 2,4-D), weedy check and weed free were evaluated in randomized block design with three replications. The results showed that application of alachlor as pre-emergence followed by tembotrione resulted in > 90, 100 and > 80% control of grass, broad-leaf and sedges, respectively, in comparison to weedy check. The yield attributes and yield of maize in this treatment was similar to weed-free. Further, this treatment recorded 24–25% higher number of grains cob⁻¹, 35–40% higher grain weight cob⁻¹, and 17% higher 100-grain weight as compared to weedy check. This treatment had 3.43–3.54 Mg ha⁻¹ higher grain yield (6.38 and 6.82 Mg ha⁻¹) and 3.49–3.76 Mg ha⁻¹ higher stover yield (8.38 and 9.07 Mg ha⁻¹) than weedy check treatment during 2015 and 2016, respectively. The highest return over variable cost (652 and 735 USD ha⁻¹) and benefit:cost ratio (1.94 and 2.11) was recorded in this treatment which was 87–97% and 45–47% higher than weedy check during 2015 and 2016, respectively. The different herbicide applied in kharif maize had no visible phyto-toxicity on maize as well as succeeding wheat crop in rabi season. This study intended to demonstrate better weed management practices in kharif maize with higher productivity and wider adoption of maize-wheat system in western IGP of India.