Productivity and profitability of direct-seeded rice under varying establishment methods and weed management practices

A field experiment was conducted at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (2016-17) to evaluate the effect of crop establishment and weed management practices on productivity, economics resource-use efficiency direct-seeded rice (DSR). The treatments included three methods, viz. Zero-tillage-DSR+Sesbania co-culture (ZT-DSR+SCC), ZT-DSR+residue+Sesbania (ZT-DSR+R+SCC) Conventional till-DSR+Sesbania coculture (CT-DSR+SCC) assigned main-plots five practices, WMP1- pendimethalin (1000 g/ha) fb bispyribac-sodium (25 20 days after sowing (DAS), WMP2-pendimethalin pyrazosulfuron (30 DAS+1 hand weeding (HW) 45 DAS, WMP3- chlorimuron+metsulfuron (4+4 HW WMP4- Weed-free WMP5- Weedy check sub-plots. laid-out in a three-time replicated split-plot design. Results showed that, ZT-DSR+R+SCC recorded higher growth parameters, such as dry matter accumulation (DMA), leaf area index (LAI), yield attributes enhanced grain yield, net return water productivity by 16.9, 61.9 20% 11.0, 69.7 10.3% during 2016 2017, respectively over CT-DSR+SCC. Among DAS DMA, LAI, finally returns 31.9, 39.2 33.3% 35.7, 36.6 37.5% weedy check. Hence, along with could be adopted for DSR.