The effect of different weed control technologies on yield of maize and profitability of maize production

Abstract

In our investigation, we used different weed control technologies in the different phenology states of the maize. The farm experiment has been carried out in 2017, in Hungary, Kunágota, on good quality chernozem soil, on 20 x 50 m plots. The experiment can be regarded as 9 weed-control strategies where, in addition to the untreated control, two chemicals are applied (Laudis, Capreno) in different doses, two mechanical weed-control technologies, and two combination of chemicals and mechanical weed-control technologies were used. Mechanical weed-control was connected to the herbicide treatments in different times: until 4-6-leaves age weedless, in 4-6-leaves age hoed once, in 4-6-leaves age cultivation once. In our farm experiment, there were assessed the number of plants, length of plants, leaf number of maize, corncob-number, corncob-length, line number of corncob, thousand seed weight yield and profitability of maize production.

Our results were evaluated by a one-factor analysis of variance. Our one-year weed control experiment show that Capreno performed better, than Laudis with respect of plant height, number of leaves, length of corn-cob, number of lines of corn-cob, thousand seed weight and yield. By increasing the dose of Capreno, all the tested values of crop elements degraded except for plant height, so the crop yield also decreased.