Integrated weed management practices for effective weed control and quality fodder production in sorghum and cowpea under rainfed conditions

Abstract

Identification of appropriate and efficient weed management tactics is a continuous process in order to cope with the emergence of new weed species and weed shifts in any cropping system. Therefore, a study was conducted to screen suitable herbicides and develop integrated weed management tactics for forage sorghum and cowpea. The bioassay and field study results suggested that oxadiargyl for sorghum and imazethapyr for cowpea exhibited selectivity and effectively controlled the weeds. The former could be used as an alternative herbicide to conventional atrazine and atrazine + pendimethalin herbicides for sorghum and the latter for pendimethalin and alachlor herbicides for cowpea. The integrated weed management study further demonstrated that Pre-application of oxadiargyl alone and Pre-application of oxadiargyl followed by manual weeding at 40 DAS for sorghum and PRE-application of imazethapyr alone and PRE-application of imazethapyr and Pre-application of imazethapyr followed by manual weeding for cowpea was effective in controlling broad spectrum weeds and resulted in higher green fodder yield.