Abstract
Conservation agriculture (CA) based practices are gaining popularity in smallholder farming systems recently because they ensure soil quality and soil health, and they also reduce the total cultivation costs. However, weeds are a major hinderance to achieving the desired yield of crops in cereal-based cropping systems under CA-based practices. Proper weed management is a big challenge for crop growers to reduce the labor demand and cost of production. Considering these burning issues, a field study was done with a CA-based rice-wheat-mung bean (Vigna radiata L.) cropping pattern in two consecutive years (2017-2018 and 2018-2019). The study aimed to understand the types and distribution of weeds in non-puddled rice fields and also in strip-planted wheat fields in sandy loam textured soil with low organic matter (0.87%) content. Furthermore, we also tried to discover the most economic and effective ways to manage weeds in both cereals of the cropping pattern. The performance of two herbicides-pendimethalin (as pre-emergence) and carfentrazone-ethyl + isoproturon (as post-emergence)-for strip-planted wheat and three herbicides-two pre-emergence herbicides pretilachlor and pyrazosulfuron-ethyl as well as one post-emergence herbicide, bispyribac-sodium-for non-puddled rainy season rice were evaluated, where the 'weedy check' and 'weed free' treatments were considered as a control. In a two-year field experiment, eight weed species in the strip-planted wheat field during the first year and fourteen species in the second year were identified. Among them, three grasses such as Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers., Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. and Echinochloa colona (L.) Link and one broadleaf weed Physalis heterophylla (L.) Nees, were found to the dominant in both years. During the first season, the dominant weed species in strip-planted wheat was Physalis heterophylla (L.); Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop was dominant in the second year. In a non-puddled field of rainy season rice, eleven weed species were found in the first year and twelve species were found in the second year. Among the weed species, four types of grasses (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers., Leptochloa chinensis (L.) Nees, Echinochloa colona (L.) Link and Leersia hexandra (Sw.), one sedge (Fimbristylis miliacea (L.) Vahl) and four broadleaf weed species (Ludwigia decurrens (Walter), Jussiaea repens (L.), Enhydra fluctuans (Lour) and Alternanthera sessilis (L.) R.Br. ex DC.) were found the common in both years. The most dominant weed in non-puddled rainy season rice was Leptochloa chinensis (L.) for the first year and Alternanthera sessilis (L.) for the second year. The study revealed that the sequential application of pendimethalin as pre-emergence treatment followed by carfentrazone-ethyl + isoproturon as post-emergence treatment were most effective and economically viable for weed control in strip-till wheat because they achieved the highest grain and straw yields. For weed management in non-puddled rainy season rice, the herbicide pyrazosulfuron-ethyl applied as pre-emergence treatment and bispyribac-sodium as the post-emergence application were found to be the most effective combination to obtain a desirable yield.