Productivity and profitability of direct-seeded rice under varying establishment methods and weed management practices

A field experiment was conducted at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (2016-17) to evaluate the effect of crop establishment and weed management practices on productivity, economics and resource-use efficiency of direct-seeded rice (DSR). The treatments included three crop establishment methods, viz. Zero-tillage-DSR+Sesbania co-culture (ZT-DSR+SCC), ZT-DSR+residue+Sesbcrnia co-culture (ZT-DSR+R+SCC) and Conventional till-DSR+Sesbcrnia co-culture (CT-DSR+SCC) assigned to main-plots and five weed management practices, viz. WMP1-pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)fb bispyribac-sodium (25 g/ha) 20 days after sowing (DAS), WMP2-pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)fb pyrazosulfuron (30 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 hand weeding (HW) 45 DAS, WMP3-pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)fb chlorimuron+metsulfuron (4+4 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 HW 45 DAS, WMP4-Weed-free and WMP5-Weedy check assigned to sub-plots. The experiment was laid-out in a three-time replicated split-plot design. Results showed that, ZT-DSR+R+SCC recorded higher growth parameters, such as dry matter accumulation (DMA), leaf area index (LAI), yield attributes and enhanced grain yield, net return and water productivity by 16.9, 61.9 and 20% and 11.0, 69.7 and 10.3% during 2016 and 2017, respectively over CT-DSR+SCC. Among weed management practices, pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)fb chlorimuron+metsulfuron (4+4 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 HW 45 DAS recorded higher DMA, LAI, yield attributes and finally enhanced grain yield, net returns and water productivity by 31.9, 39.2 and 33.3% and 35.7, 36.6 and 37.5% during 2016 and 2017, respectively over weedy check. Hence, if-DSR+R+SCC along with pendimethalin (1000 g/ha)fb chlorimuron+metsulfuron (4+4 g/ha) 20 DAS+1 HW 45 DAS could be adopted for higher yield, net returns and resource-use efficiency of DSR.