Journal of Advances in Biology & Biotechnology

The field experiment was conducted in the Experimental Farm, Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu during June - September, 2023 to study the weed management for enhancing growth attributes and yield of pearl millet. There are eleven weed management treatments viz., T₁ - Atrazine @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre), T₂ - Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre), T₃ - Pretilachlor @ 0.45 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre), T₄ - Atrazine @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + 2, 4-D @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE), T₅ - Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + 2, 4-D @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE), T₆ - Pretilachlor @ 0.45 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + 2, 4-D @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE), T₇ - Atrazine @ 0.5 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE), T₈ - Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE), T₉ - Pretilachlor @ 0.45 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE), T₁₀ - Two hand weeding at 15 and 30 DAS and T₁₁ - Unweeded Control were laid out in randomized block design with three replications. Among the herbicide treatments, Pendimethalin @ 0.75 kg a.i. ha^-1 (Pre) + Tembotrione @ 0.08 kg a.i. ha^-1 (PoE) (T₈) recorded the higher growth attributes and yield of pearl millet viz., plant height (155.84 cm), leaf area index (4.97) and dry matter production (7822 kg ha^-1), grain yield (3347 kg ha^-1) and stover yield (5155 kg ha^-1). The unweeded control (T₁₁) recorded the lowest values of growth attributes, grain and stover yield of pearl millet.