© 2018 PP House Infuence of Weed Management Practces on Weeds, Yield and Economics of Fingermillet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn) S. Kujur * , V. K. Singh, D. K. Gupta, A. Tandon, V. Ekka and H. P. Agrawal Dept. of Agronomy, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, C.G. (492 012), India A Field experiment was conducted at I.G.K.V., Rajmohini Devi College of Agricultural and Research Staton, Ambikapur (C.G), during kharif 2015. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with ten treatments, replicated thrice. Observatons were taken on weed, plant growth and yield atributes, yield, and economic parameters. Panicum maxima, Elusine indica, Cyperus spp., Cynodon dactylon, Celosia argentea, Alternanthera sessilis, Alternenthera triandra, Ageratum conyzoides were found to be domimant weeds. All weed control treatments signifcantly reduced the weed density and dry weight of weed resultng signifcant increase in yield of fngermillet over weedy check. Among the weed management practces, signifcantly lowest density, dry mater of weeds, higher weed control efciency and low weed index were recorded under hoeing twice by wheel hoe between rows and intra-row manual weeding followed by hand weeding twice. The maximum grain yield (32.58 and 29.23 q ha -1 ), straw yield (94.05 and 84.98 q ha -1 ), gross return (62973 and 56594 ` ha -1 ), net return (42024 and 32495 ` ha -1 ) and B:C rato (2.01 and 1.35) were also recorded under hoeing twice by wheel hoe between rows and intra-row manual weeding followed by two hand weeding at 20 and 40 DAS. Among herbicidal treatment, applicaton of isoproturon @ 0.5 pre emergence+2, 4-D Na salt @ 0.5 kg ha -1 post emergence appeared to be efectve, economically viable for weed control, higher grain yield and net return. 1. Introducton Fingermillet (Eleusine coracana L.) is an important small millet crop grown in India. Among the millets it ranks third in the country in both area (1.14 mha) and producton (1.82 mt) afer sorghum and pearlmillet. Major states where fnger millet is grown are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhatsgarh. In Chhatsgarh fngermillet is grown in an area of 6.9 thousand ha with producton of 1.3 thousand tonne and having a productvity of 188 kg ha -1 (Anonymous, 2016). Fingermillet also known as ragi, african millet and mandua, valued as staple food and first important crop among small millets. It contains 9.2% protein, 1.29% fat, 76.32% carbohydrate, 2.24% minerals and 3.9 % ash besides vitamin A and B. The grains are rich in phosphorus, potassium and amino acid (methionine). It is also rich source of calcium (410 mg 100 g -1 grain) for growing children and aged people (Tomar et al., 2011). Millets have hypoglycemic efect, which is atributed to high fbre content. High fbre diets containing complex carbohydrates are slowly digested and absorbed thus bring reducton in postprandial glucose. It is good for persons suffering from diabetes because of very slow release of glucose into blood. Further the straw forms a nutritous fodder for livestock. In northern hills, grains are eaten mostly in the form of ‘Chapaties’ and in south India grains are used in many preparatons like cakes, puddings, sweets, etc. Germinatng grains are malted and fed to infants also. It is also good for pregnant women. Weeds are considered as one of the major problems the farmer is faced with in the producton of crop. Fingermillet has very poor compettve ability with weeds due to its inital slow growth. Inital growth period of fngermillet is subjected to heavy weed infestaton resultng into higher competton and drastc reducton in yield (Pradhan et al., 2012; Patl et al., 2013). Since single method is not able to control all weeds up to desired level, integraton of weed management practces can be an efectve weed control strategy to achieve greater weed control efciency and increase overall beneft of fngermillet cultvaton. In this context present investgaton is carried out to evaluate the efcient weed management practces under fngermillet. 2. Materials and Methods The feld experiment was conducted at I.G.K.V., Rajmohini Devi College of Agricultural and Research Staton, Ambikapur Fingermillet, weed management, yield, economics Keywords: Abstract Article History Artcle ID: 3C0641 Received in 26 th October, 2017 Received in revised form 29 th December, 2017 Accepted in fnal form 19 th March, 2018 S. Kujur e-mail: sangeetakujur431@gmail.com Corresponding Author Doi: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/IJBSM/2018.9.2.3C0641 Full Research 209 International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management 2018, 9(2):209-213