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Plant Science Today (PST)

Research Articles

Vol. 12 No. 3 (2025)

Optimizing nitrogen splitting and herbicide use for weed suppression and yield enhancement in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.7845
Submitted
21 February 2025
Published
23-07-2025 — Updated on 31-07-2025
Versions

Abstract

Weeds are one of the most important biological threats in crop production and cause severe irrecoverable losses in crop yields. Therefore, minimizing weed severity is crucial for sustaining and boosting crop productivity. With this aim, a field experiment was conducted during the rabi seasons of 2018-19 and 2019-20 on clay loam soil at the Research Farm of Mata Gujri College, Fatehgarh Sahib (Punjab). Three nitrogen schedules as main plots and five weed management treatments as subplots were arranged in a split-plot design with three replications. Nitrogen scheduling treatments included N1 (½ Basal + ¼ at 4WAS + ¼ at 8 WAS), N2 (⅓ at 4 WAS + ⅓ at 8 WAS + ⅓ at 10 WAS), N3 (¼ at 4 WAS + ¼ at 6 WAS + ¼ at 8 WAS + ¼ at 10 WAS). Weed management treatments comprised of W0 (weedy check), W1 (weed free), W2 (clodinafop at 60 g ha-1), W3 (sulfosulfuron at 25 g ha-1) and W4 (carfentrazone at 20 g ha-1). A significant reduction in weed density, biomass, weed index and NPK uptake by weeds was observed in N3 (¼ at 4 WAS + ¼ at 6 WAS + ¼ at 8 WAS + ¼ at 10 WAS) and W3 (sulfosulfuron at 25 g ha-1) at 60 DAS and harvest stage. The highest weed control efficiency, yield attributes, crop yield, Net return and B:C ratio were recorded with N3 (¼ at 4 WAS + ¼ at 6 WAS + ¼ at 8 WAS + ¼ at 10 WAS) and W3 (sulfosulfuron at 25 g ha-1). The increase in grain yield by treatment N3 (¼ at 4 WAS + ¼ at 6 WAS + ¼ at 8 WAS + ¼ at 10 WAS) was 21.2 % over N1.

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