Agriculture & Food ISSN 1314-8591, Volume 3, 2015 Journal of International Scientific Publications www.scientific-publications.net EFFECT OF TILLAGE AND WEED CONTROL TREATMENTS ON MAIZE (ZEA MAYS L.) AND ASSOCIATED WEEDS Ragab Absy, Ezzaldin Abusteit, Shaban Shaban Agronomy Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Egypt Abstract The aim of this work study the effect of weed control treatments in preceding crop rapeseed and weed control treatments on maize and associated weeds. Field experiments were conducted during 2012 and 2013 growing seasons at the Agricultural Research and Experiments Station, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt. The preceding winter crop was canola. After canola harvest, maize experiments were conducted in the same land of canola, three weed control treatments in canola e.g. hoeing, pendimethlin and untreated check and maize experiment includes three wed control treatments e.g. hoeing twice, acetochlor and untreated check and two tillage systems no-tillage (NT) and conventional tillage (CT).The herbicide treatments did not superior to hoeing and hoeing with NT treatments were improved yield and yield components in maize, compared with untreated check, acteochlor with CT increased yield, compared to check treatments. The interaction between weed control treatments and tillage systems had significant on fresh weight and number of weeds/m 2 , as well as, number of grains/ear, weight of grains/ear and grains yield per feddan (feddan=4200 m 2 ) however the highest yield obtained by hoeing in NT and acetochlor in CT, as well as, untreated check treatments in NT improved yield and yield components and weed characters, compared to untreated check treatments in CT. 1. INTRODUCTION In the world, maize (Zea mays L.) covered about 150 million hectares following close to Rice and Wheat (Poienaru et al. 2005). In Egypt, maize the first cereal crop in summer season, the total area were cultivated 900,000 feddan (Feddan = 4200 m 2 ) during 2013 season, and the total grain yield 6, 5 million ton in 2013 (FAO, 2014). Weeds represent one of the most costly and limiting factors in crop production and cause harvesting and storage problems (Rosskopf et al. 1999).The introduction and advances with herbicide-tolerant crops made in the last 15 years have greatly altered the herbicide needs in conservation systems for those who use these technologies; however in developing regions with limited access to herbicide options or in areas where herbicide-resistant weed species have compromised the use of herbicide- tolerant crops in conservation systems, early weed management tactics and control issues in reduced tillage practices remain relevant for growers. No-tillage system is that it can improve population vertical distribution of the microclimate, with reduced illumination and air temperature at the heading stage and increased illumination and air temperature at the filling stage; in addition, relative humidity is higher under no-tillage than under conventional tillage at both the development stages (Han and Li, 2013).Conventional tillage is widely used to decrease weeds directly by burying weed seeds. The soil surface coverage provided by cover crops mulches often correlate with weed suppression (Teasdale et al. 1991). The amount of soil surface coverage is important since mulches block the light stimulus that is required for the germination of many small seeded weed species (Barnes & Putnam 1983, Moore et al. 1994, Teasdale 1993). When cover crops, such as winter rye, are incorporated into the soil, the resulting weed control is often significantly reduced (Walters & Young 2010, Walters and Yang. 2008), which is most likely due to several factors including less soil surface coverage by mulch residues, bringing new weed seed to the soil surface, quicker decomposition of incorporated residues, and lower levels of allelochemicals in the weed seed germination zone (Masiunas 1998). Generally, once cover crop residues are incorporated into the soil, allelochemicals quickly decompose and are leached away from the upper soil levels where weed seeds germinate (Dias, 1991). In contrast, when 425 Page