Impact of weed management strategies on weeds and nutrient uptake of maize

The research took place during the kharif season of 2018 and 2019 at TNAU, Coimbatore to examine the influence of weed control tactics on nutrients absorption and depletion of by maize weeds. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design consisting often weed management treatments viz., eight herbicide treatments along with weed free (hand weeding at 20 and 45 DAS) and weedy check. The findings indicated that the application of atrazine 0.5 kg a.i./ha as pre-emergence (PE) followed by (fb) topramezone 25.2 g a.i./ha as early post emergence (EPoE) had significantly lower nutrient removal by weeds (5.1, 2.2 and 3.2 N, P and K kg/ha), higher crop nutrient uptake (191.4, 56.5 and 138.9 N, P and K kg/ha) as well as grain and stover yield of maize i.e., 8.2 t/ha and 14.5 t/ha respectively and it was statistically at par with PE atrazine fb EPoE tembotrione 122 g a.i./ha. Therefore, the present study advocated the use of atrazine as PE fb topramezone or tembotrione as EPoE for reduced weed density, higher yield and nutrient uptake in maize.