Effect of Interaction Between Different Herbicides and Oat Genotypes on Yield And Yield Components of Wheat

The focus of most current crop production practices is weed control with little effort applied by herbicides. Cropping practices that degrade soil and limit genetic diversity contribute to increasing weed populations. Field experiments were initiated at Agricultural Research Farm, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar during Rabi 2004-05 to figure out the tolerance of different wild oats biotypes to herbicides. The experiments were laid out in randomized complete block design under a split-plot arrangement, with three replications. The experiment comprised of four wild oats biotypes assigned to the main plots, while 3 herbicides along with a weedy check (Sencor, Isoproturon and Affinity) were kept in sub-plots. The data were recorded on wheat spike2, number of grains spike1, 1000 grain weight (g), biological yield (t ha1), grain yield (t ha-1) and the protein content (%) in grain. The statistical analyses of data exhibited non-significant differences for tolerance of biotypes to herbicides in all the morphological and agronomic traits, while herbicides and their interaction with biotypes were significant for all the traits examined except wheat grain protein content. The herbicide Affinity out yielded rest of the herbicides. In general, the highest grain yield was harvested in Affinity treated plots across all the wild oats biotypes. It is thus recommended that judicious thinking is desired to control different biotypes infesting farmers fields, because wild oat (Avena fatua L.) is one of the most troublesome weeds in the weed community