Impact of herbicides on yield, economics and phytotoxicity in kharif maize

A field experiment was carried during kharif 2015 at Agricultural Research farm, TCA, Dholi, a campas of Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar. The treatments comprised of atrazine, Pendimethalin, halosulfuron, 2, 4-D di methyl amine, metribuzine, Power weeder and hand weeding and there combinations arranged in RBD design with 12 treatments. Among the different weed management practices significantly higher plant height was found with the application of atrazine @ 1.5 kg/ha (PE) fb halosulfuron @ 60g/ha (PoE) during the year of experiment. However, the higher yield recorded under weed free plot (hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAS) but it was found at par with atrazine @ 1.5 kg/ha (PE) fb halosulfuron @ 60 g/ha (PoE) and pendimethalin (1000 ml/ha) as pre-emergence fb Atrazine (750 g/ha) + 2, 4-D dimethyl amine (75 %) at 25 DAS as post-emergence. Maximum net return and B:C ratio were recorded under atrazine @ 1.5 kg/ha pre-emergence fb halosulfuron methyl @ 60 g/ha post-emergence (T7) which was found at par with pendimethalin (1000 ml/ha) as pre-emergence fb atrazine (750 g/ha) + 2, 4-D dimethyl amine (75 %) at 25 DAS as post-emergence (T9). However, among the different herbicidal treatments application of halosulfuron methyl, atrazine, pendimethalin and 2,4-D were safe to the maize crop but use of metribuzine @ 0.75 kg/ha caused phototoxic effect on maize during the year of experimentation.