Evaluating bio-efficacy of aclonifen herbicide against diverse weed flora in wheat

Weeds in wheat crop are usually managed by herbicides in north-western India due to narrow row spacing, labour scarcity, similar morphology of grassy weeds, particular Phalaris minor. Further, continuous adoption of same mode of action based herbicides resulted in development of herbicide resistance in wheat associated weeds. Therefore, a field study was carried to at Agronomy Research Farm of CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar during rabi 2018-19 and 2019-20 to evaluate the efficacy of aclonifen herbicide against weed flora in wheat. The treatments included different doses of aclonifen 600 SC at 900, 1050, 1200 g/ha as pre-emergence (PE) just after sowing and one day before first irrigation as early post emergence (EPoE) compared with pendimethalin 1500 g/ha PE, post emergence (PoE) application of sulfosulfuron 25 g/ha, untreated control, two hand weeding and weed free. The results indicated that PE and EPoE application of aclonifen 1200 g/ha provided 23.4-22.7% and 28.5-27.8% higher wheat grain yield compared to weedy check. EPoE application of aclonifen 1200 g/ha provided higher control of diverse weeds such as P. minor, M. denticulata, C. didymus and L. aphaca, as compared to pendimethalin 1250 g/ha (PE). Application of aclonifen 1200 g/ha resulted in statistically similar grain yield along with pendimethalin 1250 g/ha (4258-4423 kg/ha) as PE and PoE application of sulfosulfuron 25 g/ha (4618-4687 kg/ha).