Weed management options

1. Hand weeding:

• Usually, manual method of weed control is adopted at this time due to young stage of fruits plants by employing labor
• They use small hand tools (khurpi) for removing weeds in basins and between rows of plants

2. Mechanical method:

• When the orchard comes of age between 8 and 10 years, mechanical method of weeding by using bullock drawn implements or tractors and tillers with special weeding tools attachments are employed for effective weed control
• The type and nature of tools used in mechanical method depend upon the row spacing adopted for orchard
• And in an average type of orchard, three to four ploughing (machine or bullock drawn) are enough in a year

3. Cover cropping:

• Cover cropping is another practice followed in fruit orchard to suppress the growth of weeds, to bring additional income to the grower until the trees begin to bear and improve the health of trees if the intercrops grown are of right type.
• The recommended intercrops in fruit orchards for summer season are bottle gourd, bitter gourd, onion, chilies, cowpea, black gram and green gram
• For winter season, the intercrops suggested are peas, turnip, cauliflower, carrot, radish and gram

4. Chemical control:

• Herbicides have been used to some extent in fruit orchard to control weeds
• Application of Paraquat (3.0kg a.i./ha) or Diuron as pre-emergent treatment at 6.67 and 8.9 kg/ha gives good control of weeds in fruit orchard
• Or Bromocil and Dalapon were also effective for controlling dicot and monocot weeds respectively
• One spray of Atrazine or Diuron at 2.0 kg a.i./ha as pre-emergent treatment to soil and one spray of Paraquat as post –emergent spray on weeds at 3.0 kg a.i./ha have been found effective for controlling both monocot and dicot weeds in one to five years old fruit orchard

5. Mulching:

• Mulching with inorganic materials like black polythene film and organic materials like wheat and rice straw, sugar cane trash, dried leaves and saw dust have been advocated for conserving soil moisture and fostering rapid growth of plants