PERFORMANCE AND ECONOMICS OF GROWING MAIZE UNDER ORGANIC AND INORGANIC FERTILIZATION AND WEED MANAGEMENT

摘要

Weed competition and imbalanced fertilizers are important yield reducing factors in maize. To investigate the impact ofweed management and combinations of fertilizers on yield and net income of maize, a field trial was conducted at NationalAgricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan during summer 2014. Randomized complete block design with split-plotarrangement was used with three replications. Four weeds pressures viz. (1) hand weeding at 25 cm on both sides of each rowof maize plants, (2) No hand weeding at 25 cm on both sides of maize rows, (3) application of Primextra gold (atrazine plus Smetolachlor)@ 1.44 kg a.i. ha-1 as pre-emergence and (4) weedy check (control) were assigned to main plots. While differentcombinations of NPK were assigned to sub plots. Data revealed that dry weed biomass close to maize plants were significantlylower (140.4 kg ha-1) as compared to weeds 25 cm away from maize plants (153.2 kg ha-1). However, the application of atrazineplus S-metolachlor showed promising results by decreasing the weed biomass (53.6 kg ha-1) as compared to 155.6 kg ha-1 incontrol. Combination of fertilizers, also significantly affected the weed biomass. As compared to control, all the fertilizers (N, Pand K) significantly increased weed biomass. Presence of weeds close to the crop rows, proved more harmful for grain yield ofmaize. Overall, application of herbicide in combination with NPK showed promising results in term of weed control and grainyield. Net income was higher when herbicide in combination with N, P or NP was used.