WEED CONTROL STRATEGIES AFFECTING YIELD POTENTIAL OF AROMATIC RICE

A field experiment was conducted at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh during aman season with a view to find out the yield potential of transplant aromatic rice varieties under different weed control strategies. The experiment was carried out with four varieties i.e. BRRI dhan34, BRRI dhan37, BRRI dhan50 and Chinigura in the main plot and five weed controlstrategies viz. control (no weeding), one hand weeding at 15DAT, two hand weeding 15DAT + 40DAT, Topstar® 400SC (Oxadiargyl 400 g L^-1) @ 100 g ha^-1 as post-emergence and Sunrice® 150WG (Ethoxysulfuron 150 g kg^-1) @ 185 ml ha^-1 as pre-emergence herbicide in the sub plot in split plot design. The result showed that BRRI dhan34 gave highest (3.16 t ha^-1) and BRRI dhan50 produced lowest grain yield (1.88 t ha^-1). Sunrice® 150WG as pre-emergence herbicide controlled weeds very successfully which performed better in response of yield contributing characters of rice. Application of Sunrice® 150WG achieved highest grain yield which was 50.73%, 32.07%, 11.95% and 5.25% higher than the yield obtained from control, one hand weeding, two hand weeding and Topstar® 400SC treated plots, respectively. The interaction of BRRI dhan34 in combination with Sunrice® 150WG produced the highest grain yield (4.10 t ha^-1) while lowest grain yield (1.44 t ha^-1) was obtained from BRRI dhan50 in control treatment.