EFFICACY OF FOMESAFEN AGAINST BROADLEAVED WEEDS AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN SOYBEAN

A field experiment was conducted during kharif season of 2017 and 2018 at Agricultural Farm, Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal to evaluate bio-efficacy of fomesafen herbicides against broad leaved weed and productivity of soybean. Among herbicides, fomesafen at its all doses, significantly reduced both the density and dry weight of Trianthema portulacastrum, Digera arvensis, Phyllanthus niruri and Acalypha indica than weedy check at 40 DAS over imazethapyr and fluazifop-p-butyl + fomesafen. All the herbicides significantly increased plant height, yield parameters like number of pods plant-1, number of seeds pod-1, 1000 seed weight and seed yield of soybean over weedy check during both the year of experiments. Among herbicides fomesafen (350 and 625 g ha-1) recorded higher yield parameter over imazethapyr and fluazifop-p-butyl + fomesafen. The highest seed yield was recorded with fomesafen 625 and 350 g ha-1 during 2017 and 2018, respectively which were statistically at par with weed free, fomesafen 300 and 250 g ha-1 except 2017 but statistically higher than standard check. Hence, application of fomesafen as post-emergence is better option to reduce broadleaved weed dynamic as well as produced higher yield during kharif season.