Effect of weed management practices on root growth of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of various weed management practices on root parameters viz., root length, root number, and root volume in the wheat variety GW-273 during the rabi season of 2020-21 at the Instructional cum Research Farm, S.G. College of Agriculture and Research Station, Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh, India. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The experiment comprised five treatments: hand hoeing at 30 days after sowing (DAS) (T1), metribuzin application @ 175 g a.i. ha-1 at 20 DAS (T2), one hand weeding at 20 DAS (T3), two hand weedings at 20 and 40 DAS (T4), and an absolute control (T5). Results revealed that the significanlty highest number of roots hill-1, root length and root volume were achieved with two hand weedings at 20 and 40 DAS over rest of the treatments but being on par with metribuzin application @ 175 g a.i. ha-1 at 20 DAS at all growth stages. However, control treatment exhibited the lowest values for all measured root parameters. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that two hand weeding treatment was the most effective method for weed management compared to rest of treatments.