MD. FARID HOSSAIN1 and M.H.TARIQUE1*
1Department of Agronomy and Agricultural Extension, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh, *Corresponding author’s Email: m_hasantarique@yahoo.com.
ABSTRACT
An experiment was conducted at Agronomy Field Laboratory, Department of Agronomy and Agricultural Extension, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh during the rabi season from December 2012 to April 2013 to study the effect of weed control treatments on the yield and yield components of chickpea. The experiment was conducted with three chickpea cultivars viz. BARI Chola-9, BARI Chola-5 and BU Chola-1 and four weed control treatments namely no weeding, one hand weeding, two hand weeding and weed free. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Dominant weed species that infested in the chickpea field were Cynodon dactylon, Cyperus rotundus, Cyanotis axillaris and Chenopodium album. Cultivars had significant effects on all the crop characters except plant height. The cultivar BARI Chola-9, produced higher seed yield (1.50 t ha-1) than those in BARIChola-5 and BU Chola-1. On the other hand BU Chola-1 produced the lowest seed yield (1.39 t ha-1). All the yield and yield components significantly influenced by weed control treatment except plant height, number of seeds pod-1 and 1000seed weight. The highest plant height, plant weight, number of branches plant-1, number of total pod plant-1, number of fertile pod plant-1, number of seeds pod-1, 1000 seed weight, straw yield, seed yield and harvest index were observed in completely weed free condition throughout the crop growth period. On the other hand all these characters that appeared next to the highest were found in the two hand weeding treatment. However all these yield and yield components were the lowest in no weeding treatment. The effect of interaction between cultivar and weed control treatment was non-significant for all the yield and yield components of chickpea.
Keywords: Weed control, Yield and Chickpea.