Effect of Plant Spacing and Weed Mulches on Yield and Weeds of Potato Crop
Effect of Plant Spacing and Weed Mulches on Yield and Weeds of Potato Crop
Zahid Hussain
ABSTRACT
Plant spacing and weeds as mulch can together have a good effect on weed competition with the potato crop. In this regard, an experiment was conducted at the university research farm of the University of Agriculture Peshawar during the cropping season of 2020 to investigate the impact of various plant to plant spaces and weeds used as mulches on the yield of potato crop and the associated weeds infesting the crop under irrigated conditions. For the data analysis of the experiment, a two factorial statistical design was used while the treatments were replicated three times. The plant spacing was kept as factor A including the plant to plant spaces of 15, 25 and 35 cm; while the weed mulches were considered as the factor B that included the biomasses of Cannabis sativa and Plantago lanceolata as weed mulches. A hand weeding treatment and a weedy check (control) were kept as standards for comparison as ideal and worst conditions. The data were taken on various parameters of the crop and weeds including weed density (WD) (m-2), fresh weed biomass (FWB) (kg ha-1), no of leaves plant-1 (NLP), plant height (PH) (cm), tuber weight (TW) (g plant-1) and tuber yield (TY) (t ha-1). Results revealed that the plant spacing, weed-mulches and their interactions had a significant effect on majority of the parameters studied. Among the different levels of factor A, the plant to plant space of 35 cm resulted in a significant increase in WD (108.8 m-2), FWB (1609 kg ha-1), NLP (28.39 plant-1), and (TW) (695.45 g plant-1); while plant spacing of 15 cm significantly increased the PH (55 cm) and TY (20.64 t ha-1). Minimum WD (77.8 m-2), FWB (1128 kg ha-1), NLP (23.77 plant-1), and TW (482.62 g plant-1) were recorded in plots of 15 cm planting spacing. For factor B, the control plots had a significantly higher WD (141.78 m-2), FWB (1942 kg ha-1) and PH (60.63 cm); while hand weeding treatments resulted in significantly higher NLP (30.09), TW (838.8 g) and TY (25 t ha-1); however, NLP of 21.4 leaves, TW of 331.6 g plant-1 and TY of 13.6 t ha-1 were recorded in control plots. In conclusion, the plant spacing of 15 cm among potato seedlings in combination with the mulching of Cannabis sativa showed desirable results regarding weed control and crop yield under the irrigated and agro-ecological situation of Peshawar.
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