Weed growth and productivity of sweet corn (Zea mays) as influenced by weed management practices under rainfed condition

The field experiment was conducted at School of Agricultural Sciences, Nagaland University, during the kharif 2022 to study the different weed management practices on the growth, yield and economics of sweet corn (Zea mays saccharata). The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design consisting of 8 treatments. Results showed that two hand weeding at 20 DAS and 40 DAS proved to be the most effective in controlling weed density and influencing the growth and yield of sweet corn. However, among the integration treatments, application of atrazine at 1 kg/ha as PE fb one hand weeding at 20 DAS showed the lowest weed density and weed dry-matter, cob yield (8.05t/ha) and green fodder yield (19.31 t/ha). However, from an economic point of view, atrazine at 1 kg/ha as PE fb tembotrione at 0.12 kg/ha as PoE gave the highest B: C ratio (3.54) followed by atrazine at 1 kg/ha as PE fb one hand weeding. Higher cost of hand weeding can be replaced by application of herbicides which can result in higher profitability of the sweet corn production.