Sorghum

Weed Management

Introduction Common Weeds In Sorghum Root Parasites

Introduction

Several monocoltyledonous and dicotyledonous weeds interfere with crop growth.
Sorghum is slow growing in early stages and is adversely affected by weeds.
The critical period of crop-weed competition is the first 20 to 30 days of crop growth.
The weeds reduce the yield as they compete with the crop for water, nutrients and light.
The weed growth is usually more in early stages of the crop. In the grown up crop with well established canopy weeds grow poorly.

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Common Weeds

Grasses

Arugampul (Hariali grass)	Cynodon dactylon
Mathangipul	Dactyloctenium aegyptium
Arisipul	Digitaria sanguinalis
Kunjampul	Chloris barbata
Ingipul	Panicum repens

Sedges

Korai (Nutgrass)	Cyperus rotundus

Broad Leaved

Saranai	Trianthema portulocastrum
Kuppaikerai	Amaranthus viridis
Vettukayapoodu	Tridax procumbens
Congress weed	Parthenium hysterophorus
Nai thulasi	Ocimum canum
Kuppaimeni	Acalypha indica
Aduthinna palai	Aristolochia bracteata
Nerungi	Tribulus terrestris
Oomathai	Datura fastuosa

Control measures

Manual

Remove the weeds by hand hoeing between 35-40 days after sowing.

Chemical

Apply pre-emergence herbicide Atrazine 50 WP 500 g/ha four days after sowing as spray on soil surface.
Herbicide application keeps the field free of weeds upto 25-30 days.

Application Technique

Apply the herbicide on soil surface using Backpack or Knapsack or Rocker sprayer fitted with a flat fan nozzle using 900 litres of water /ha.

Precautions

If pulse crop is intercropped with sorghum do not use Atrazine, use Pendimethalin at 3 lit/ha.
Soil should be moist when weedicide is applied.
Use a sprayer exclusively for herbicides.
Do not walk over herbicide sprayed area because the weeds in walked areas may not be covered properly by herbicide and the effect will be reduced.

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Root Parasite

Witch weed or striga (Striga casiatica and Striga hermonthica) is a parasitic plant on sorghum.
Striga spp. produce enormous dormant seeds with high viability. Seed population per plant ranges from 90000 to 5 millions. Seeds are spread by wind currents.
The seeds of the parasite germinate in the presence of host plants, penetrate the host root system and grow as parasitic plant.
It depends on the host plant for water and nutrients. As a result, growth and yield of sorghum is affected.

Control Measures

Grow striga resistant cultivar COH.3
Adopt crop rotation with cotton, soybean, cowpea, sunflower and groundnut. These serve as trap crops which produce chemical stimulant necessary for striga seed germination but not parasitised by striga.
Pullout the parasites when population is sparse.
Spray herbicide 2,4-D @ 0.5 kg/ha.
Use 900 litres of spray fluid/ha.

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Tamilnadu

Sorghum

About Sorghum

History
Morphology

Sorghum Management

Services Overview

The key services offered by Ikisan are:

System study, design and development of IT enabled solutions and services for the agri sector.

Execution of rural IT enabled projects on BOT/BOOT/Turnkey basis.

Development, Customization and Deployment of Ikisan's IPR protected software applications.

Providing support services and best management practices for augmenting the marketing development efforts of the groups agricultural input companies (NFCL and NACL).

Development and Dissemination of best practice and information though a unique multi lingual knowledge website for the agri sector.

Some of the key customers/partners that benefit significantly from our work include are Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, State Agricultural Marketing Boards, Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Tamilnadu, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Motorola Mobility (GOOGLE) etc.

As highlighted earlier Ikisan provides significant support to the market development and marketing efforts of NFCL and NACL by providing best practices and information across the agricultural input value chain - weather, soil, seeds, fertilizers, water, pesticides, output prices etc. that have enabled the companies to develop deep customer relationships and in turn enable them to grow above market growth rates. Recently example in fertilizers includes the development of Customized Fertilizer Grades (for NFCL across India that are crop and location specific have not only reduced the current consumption of fertilizers of farmers but have significantly enhanced crop yields and farmer incomes) that are expected to add significant revenues to the company.

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