Vol. 4, Issue 2, Part B (2022)

A field experiment was conducted during the summer season of 2020 and 2021 at Agricultural Experimental Farm of Calcutta University, Baruipur, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal to find out the effect of plastic mulch and herbicides on weed dynamics, productivity and economics of sesame. Among different weed management treatments, plastic mulch was found very effective in reducing weed density and dry weight at 30 and 60 DAS and registered highest weed control efficiency at 30 DAS in 2020 and 60 DAS in both the years and lowest weed index. Sequential application of pendimethalin + imazethapyr 250g / ha at 2 DAS fb pendimethalin + imazethapyr+ fenoxaprop-p-ethyl 100 g a.i./ ha at 20 DAS recorded significantly lower density and dry weight of weeds than application of pendimethalin 750 g/ ha at 2 DAS, pendimethalin + imazethapyr 250g/ ha at 2 DAS and fenoxaprop-p-ethyl 100 g/ ha at 20 DAS. Weed free resulted in maximum seed yield which did not vary significantly from plastic mulch during both the years. The uninterrupted weed growth caused 49.37% and 46.67% yield loss in sesame during 2020 and 2021, respectively. However, the highest B:C ratio was 2.00, observed in plastic mulch + dibbling (considering only 2021, as the yield was highly damaged by “Amphun storm”) which was closely followed by weed free plot (1.69 and 1.14 in both the years 2020 and 2021 respectively).