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An experiment was carried out at the Agronomy Field Laboratory, agricultural college, Bapatla, ANGRA
University, in kharif-2012 to study “effect of plant density and weed management practices on economic
performance of direct drum seeded and transplanted rice”. Two factors were included in the experimentsix
plant densities viz., of 71, 47, 35, 28, 20 and 33 hills m-2, respectively and five weed management
practices viz., weedy check (W1), hand weeding at 20 and 40 DAS (W2), cono weeding at 20 and 40 with
modified cono weeder (W3), pre-emergence application of anilofos @ 0.375 kg a.i ha-1 followed by postemergence
application of 2, 4 D sodium salt @ 1.0 kg a.i ha-1 20-25 DAS (W4), pre-emergence
application of pendimethalin @1.0 kg a.i ha-1 followed by post-emergence application of bispyribac
sodium @ 20 g a.i ha-1 30 DAS ( W5). The experiment was laid out in a strip-plot design assigning plant
density in the horizontal factor and herbicide application in vertical factor with three replications. The
highest cost of cultivation (Rs 22036 ha-1) was recorded with D6×W3 treatment (manual transplant in
combination with cono weeding twice). It was followed by D2×W3 (Rs 21210 ha-1), D6×W2 (Rs 20847 ha-1)
and D6×W5 (Rs 20067 ha-1) because of high labour wages where ever manual input is involved. The
higher cost involvement in transplanting method was due to extra labour required in seedling raising,
uprooting and transplanting, accounting 8.40% of input cost.
Drum seeding method, with plant density of 47 hills m-2 in combination with cono weeding twice (D2×W3)
through resulted in highest gross returns (Rs 61202 ha-1), the high cost of cultivation (Rs 21210 ha-1)
resulted in lesser net returns (Rs 39992 ha-1) in turn lead to reduced returns per rupee invested (1.89) as
compared with hand weeding D2×W5 (2.36), D1×W5 (2.15), D2×W2 (2.15) respectively. Although
transplanted method required more investment than direct seeded rice but return was more in direct wet
seeded method, consequently direct seeded thick and thin row methods produced an additional profit over
transplanted rice because of labor saving and higher grain yield in the former case.
Keywords: bispyribac- sodium,Weed population, Drum seeding, cono weeding, pendimethalin, Hand weeding.