Effect of Crop Establishment Methods and Weed Management Practices on Productivity and Profitability of Clusterbean under Semi-arid Region of Rajasthan

Background: Adequate tillage checks and delays the emergence of weeds and provides a more favourable environment for early crop establishment. Slow growth of crop plant provides favourable environment for emergence of weeds. Cultural as well as mechanical practices such as hand weeding and intercultural are effective but unavailability of labour and continuous rainfall in rainy season does not permit for timely management of weeds Chemical weed control is effective weed management option which provides effective control of weeds. It is well known that weeds are ubiquitous but their presence in cropped area particularly in rainy season crops like clusterbean act as major limiting factor in achieving high potential yield. The current study aimed to study the impact of crop establishment methods and weed control practices on productivity and profitability of clusterbean. Methods: A field experiment was carried out to find out suitable method of crop establishment methods and weed management practices in clusterbean during kharif seasons of 2018, 2019 and 2020. The experiment was conducted in spilt plot design with three replications. The treatments were four crop establishment methods viz., conventional sowing, zero tillage sowing, broad bed sowing, zero tillage sowing with mulch as main plots and four weed control practices viz., weedy check, pendimethalin+imazethapyr 1000 g ha-1, T3- Imazethapyr 40 g ha-1, T4-Imazethapyr+imazamox 40 g ha-1 as sub plot treatments . Result: The broad bed sowing of clusterbean along with pre-emergence application of pendimethalin+ imazethapyr 1000 g ha-1 was found effective to achieve higher productivity and farm profitability.