Sustainable weed management programme for rainfed cotton based cropping system

Field experiments were conducted for two seasons (September '97 to April '98 and October 98 to May '99) at Fredrick Institute of Plant Protection and Toxicology (FIPPAT), Padappai, to develop a sustainable weed management programme in rainfed cotton. Results revealed that, intercropping of soybean and sesame led to weed suppression in rainfed cotton to the extent of 39.6 and 28.4 per cent respectively. The seed cotton yield obtained from cotton + soybean intercropping system under unweeded conditions was similar (1196 kg ha) to the yield of sole cotton supplenfented with single hand weeding alone (1220 kg ha¹). Similarly, single hand weeding operation in the cotton + soybean cropping system resulted in a substantially higher seed cotton yield (1528 kg ha-1), than the yield of sole cotton crop supplemented with two hand weedings (1432 kg ha¹). So, the adoption of Soybean, as a intercrop in rainfed cotton is an effective method for checking the weeds population as well as enhancing the yield potential in rainfed cotton and also labour saving, by minimising to one hand weeding. Similar effects were also found in cotton + sesame intercropping system. Furthermore, in labour scarce situation, the application of pre-emergence herbicide Fluchloralin @ 1.0 kg a.i ha in cotton-soybean intercropping system could be an alternative method.