A new domestic herbicide for weed control in maize crops ‘Metkiy, MD’

Abstract

      There has been studied comparative efficiency (technical and economic) of domestic and foreign herbicides in controlling weeds in maize hybrid ‘Karat SV’ in the conditions of the steppe zone of Kabardino-Balkaria.   The purpose of the current study was to determine the efficiency of using the domestically produced herbicide ‘Metkiy, MD’ on maize for grain and its effect on crop infestation and yield size.   The trials were carried out at NPO No. 2, v. of Opytnoe, KBR in 2019–2021 on the experimental field of the laboratory for cultivating field crops at the Institute of Agriculture of the Kabardino-Balkarky Research Center RAN. There has been estimated the efficiency of the herbicide ‘Metkiy, MD’ in various dosages when applying 1.0 and 2.0 l/ha in the phase of 5–6 leaves of the crop, where 82.0–88.0 % of the total amount of weeds died 28–30 days after the application of the herbicide, including 78.0–85.0 % of Johnsongrass. The standards were various dosages of foreign herbicides ‘Kelvin Plus’, ‘VDG’ at a dose of 0.3 and 0.4 kg/ha and ‘Milagro Plus, MD’ at 1.0 and 1.2 l/ha. These options have also shown a high degree of suppression of the total amount of weeds (83.0–93.0 %), including 82.0–89.0 % of died malicious rhizomatous perennial Johnson-grass. By the period of grain harvesting, this pattern had no changes. During this period there were up to 75.0 specimens and 800.0 g/m2 of wet weight of weeds. In the variants using ‘Metky, MD’ in the tested dosages, the wet weight of the weeds was 80.0 g/m2 versus 90.5 g/m2 in the reference variants. The study confirmed the formation of high grain productivity of maize against the background of using the domestic herbicide ‘Metkiy, MD’ equal to 81.3–82.3 t/ha against 80.6–82.0 t/ha at the background of reference options, with the use of various dosages of foreign herbicides.