Effect of Different Herbicides on Weed Management in Radish

摘要

Radish (Raphanus sativus L.) is a popular vegetable root crop in both tropical and temperate regions. Radish is grown for its young tender tuberous roots, which are eaten raw as salad or cooked as vegetable. It is a good source of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, potassium and phosphorus. In northern plains, it is grown during winter, while in the peninsular India radish can be grown almost throughout the year. Weeds pose a serious problem in vegetable crops because of the liberal use farm yard manure, fertilizers and frequent irrigations that help the weeds to grow vigorously. It has now been well established that losses from weeds are more than due to insect-pests and diseases. In most of the vegetables, early growth period is the most critical stage at which stress of any kind can affect the economic yield. Weed competition is one such stress during this period. During this period weather conditions do not permit the traditional methods of weed control. Besides, this period coincides with aperiod of scarcity of labour for weeding. Chemical weed control method, therefore, is the prime need. Very little information with regard to chemical weed control on root crops in general and radish crop in particular is available especially in India. Use of pre-emergent herbicides is beneficial to keep the crop weed free in the early stages. On-farm trials with different pre-emergent herbicides in radish were conducted to analyze how the weed competition influenced growth and thereby root yield.