Effect of Planting and Weed Control Methods on Yield and its Attributes of Egyptian Cotton (Giza 90 cultivar)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during the 2019 and 2020 seasons to investigate the influence of different weed management treatments namely; Butralin as pre-emergence herbicide (2.5 L/fed.), butralin (2.5 L/ fed.) + hoeing once at one month after planting (DAP), hand hoeing thrice at 15, 30 and 45 DAP and un-weeded treatment under different planting methods, i.e., rows and raised beds planting, on weeds density, yield and its attributes of cotton cultivar Giza 90. Results indicated that weeds density was decreased significantly with all studied weed control methods compared with un-weeded treatment(control) in both seasons. In addition, the plant height, sympodial branches number, opening bolls number, boll weight and cotton yield were also increased with all studied weed management treatments over no-weed treatment. Also, hand hoeing thrice during the growing season gave higher values for seed cotton yield as compared to the other studied weed control treatments in the two grown seasons. Furthermore, the obtained result showed that among the tested planting methods, beds width 120cm planting gave the highest results in terms of controlling weeds, decreasing weeds dry weight, increasing number of sympodial branches plant -1 , total number of opening bolls plant -1 , boll weight and seed cotton yield. The interaction between planting methods and weed control methods was significant in its effect on all studied traits. The interaction showed that applying hand hoeing thrice in beds with planting width 120 cm led to a reduction in the dry weight of total weeds either broad or grassy weeds, giving the best results for sympodial branches number, total number of opening bolls, weight of boll and seed cotton yield.