Weed management in sesame using herbicides with and without soil mulch in lateritic soil of West Bengal

A field experiment was conducted during the pre-Kharif season of 2020 at the Agricultural Farm of the Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal with sesame variety ‘Rama’ to study the weed growth and productivity of summer sesame as influenced by herbicides under two soil mulch practices. A split plot design with three replications was used for experimentation. Two soil mulch practices comprising of sowing after pre-sowing irrigation (soil mulch) and sowing followed by (fb) irrigation (no mulch) were allocated in the main plots and six weed managements treatments in sub-plots, viz. pre-emergence application (PE) of pendimethalin 1.0 kg/ha; early post-emergence application (EPoE) of fenoxaprop-p-ethyl at 60 g/ha 18 days after seeding (DAS); pretilachlor 450 g/ha PE; propaquizafop 60 g/ha EPoE at 18 DAS; untreated control and weed free check. Sesame was infested with ten weed species with predominance of grassy weeds (60.23%).Total weed density and total weed biomass at 45 DAS were reduced by 24.70% and 25.18%, respectively, under soil mulch compared to no mulch. Soil mulch recorded 12.99% higher sesame seed yield, over no mulch. Similarly, fenoxaprop-ethyl 60 g/ha EPoE, pendimethalin1.0 kg/ha PE and propaquizafop 60 g/ha EPoE produced higher sesame seed yield than other tested herbicidal treatments. Soil mulch sowing of sesame along with fenoxaprop-p-ethyl 60 g/ha EPoE or propaquizafop 60 g/ha EPoE gave effective weed management and higher sesame seed yield, specially in the fields having predominance of grassy weeds in lateritic soil of West Bengal.