Effects of Post-emergence Herbicides and Hand Weeding to Control Weeds on Wheat under Irrigation Condition in West Gondar Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Bread wheat is one of the most important cereal crops grown in Ethiopia. However, its productivity in the country is low because of abiotic and biotic stress including annual broadleaf and grass weeds. The present experiment was conducted to evaluate six (6) post-emergence herbicides and a hand weeding as a check and weedy control during 2021 and 2022 under irrigation conditions at Metema experimental site using a Randomized Complete Block design replicated three times. The Kekeba wheat variety was used at a seed rate of 125 kg ha-1 and plot size of 9 m2 was used. All post-emergence herbicides and hand weeding
significantly suppressed both types of weed populations over weedy check. Among the treatments Richway 750 WDG (55.9 m2), Top Harvest 80 EC (40.7 m2), twice hand weeding (49 m2) and Atlantis OD 37.5 (53.7 m2) highly significantly reduced weed populations with substantial improvement of grain yield. However, the maximum cost/benefit ratio was obtained on plots that received Top Harvest 80 EC and Atlantis OD 37.5. Therefore, it can be concluded that Top Harvest 80 EC and Atlantis OD 37.5 effectively controlled weeds and gave maximum grain yield and may be recommended for the lowland areas of west Gondar and similar agro-ecologies.