IMPACT OF DIFFERENT WEED MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES ON WEED DENSITY, WEED BIOMASS, WEED CONTROL EFFICIENCY, GROWTH AND YIELD OF TARO (COLOCASIA ESCULENTA VAR. ANTIQUORUM)

Colocasia is one of the most important tuber crops grown in India.Cormels and corms can be compared favourably in nutrition form with potatoes and cereals, its leaves are highly nutritious with good amount of protein and vitamins.The field experiment was conducted during the years 2021 and 2022, under All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Tuber Crops at Regional Horticultural Research and Extension Center, Dharwad (Karnataka).The experiment was laid out in RCBD design with eight treatments with three replications.The result revealed that the Higher WCE of 75.20 % was achieved with weed control ground cover mat mulching and it was followed by 78.04 % with hand weeding at 30 DAP+ Post emergence herbicide at 60 and 90 DAP in their pooled mean.Weed control ground cover mat mulching at 60 and 120 DAP recorded taller plants of 38.79 and 78.47 cm respectively with more Number of green leaves of 4.53 and 11.12, number of tillers (4.41 and 9.20) and leaf area index of 0.27 and 0.62 respectively in their pooled mean and significantly higher corm yield, cormel yield and total yield (6.08, 17.83 and 23.90 t ha -1 respectively in their pooled mean) was recorded in treatment with weed control ground cover mat mulching.Higher gross and net returns ( 597515 and 389145 respectively) were obtained with hand weeding thrice at 30, 60 and 90 DAP, which was closely followed by weed control ground cover mat mulching ( 513774 and 313404 respectively).Significantly higher B:C ratio (2.85) was recorded by ground cover mat mulch.