Effect of Different Establishment and Weed Management Techniques on Growth and Yield of Rice (Oryza sativa L.) under Irrigated Condition

During the Kharif season of 2018, a field experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Research Farm of Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology (Kumarganj), Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, to assess the impact of various crop establishment methods and weed management techniques on growth and yield of rice. The experiment included three rice establishment methods i.e., transplanting, drum seeding, and direct seeding along with five weed management techniques i.e., pyrazosulfuron-ethyl 10% WP @ 30 g ha-1 at 5 days after sowing (DAS) or transplanting (DAT), chlorimuron-ethyl + Metsulfuron-methyl @ 4 g ha-1 at 10 DAS/DAT, bispyribac-sodium @ 25 g ha-1 at 30 DAS/DAT, hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS/DAT, and weedy check. These treatments were arranged in a Factorial Randomized Block Design with three replications, forming fifteen treatment combinations. According to the findings, the transplanting method of rice establishment considerably improved growth metrics such as plant height, number of tillers m-2, leaf area index, and dry matter accumulation at all development stages except 30 days. It also improved yield attributes, including the number of productive tillers, panicle length, grains panicle-1 and 1000-grains weight, leading to higher biological yield (9.71 t ha⁻¹), grain yield (4.78 t ha⁻¹), and straw yield (4.93 t ha-1) compared to the drum-seeded and direct-seeded methods for the NDR-2065 rice variety. Further, among the weed management techniques, two hand weeding applied at 20 and 40 DAS/DAT resulted in the best growth performance, with increased initial plant population, plant height, number of tillers, leaf area index and dry matter accumulation. This practice also led to improved yield attributes such as the number of productive tillers, grains panicle-1, panicle length, 1000-grains weight, biological yield (10.99 t ha-1), grain yield (5.41 t ha-1), straw yield (5.58 t ha-1) and harvest index (49.25%). Bispyribac-sodium @ 25 g ha-1 at 30 DAS/DAT, Pyrazosulfuron-ethyl 10% WP @ 30 g ha-1, and chlorimuron-ethyl + Metsulfuron-methyl @ 4 g ha-1, in that order, were the next best-performing methods after manual weeding Twice. Thus, the combination of the transplanting method for rice establishment and two-handed weeding showed to be the most beneficial in terms of rice growth, yield characteristics, and total yield.