Effect of Date of Sowing and Weed Management on Weed and Yield of Barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.)

Introduction

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of the most important cereals of the world. Barley ranks fourth, next to maize, wheat and rice both in acreage and production. It grows well in temperate and sub-tropical region of earth. Barley (Hordium Vulgare L.) is the fourth most important cereal crop grown worldwide on approximately 49.2 million hectares (m ha) with a production of 145.8 million tonnes (Mt) (USDA, 2023) and is considered as one of the most nutritious foods. Barley occupied an area of 0.608 m ha with a production of 1.92 Mt in India during 2024-25 (DA&FW, 2025). Sowing time depends on the weather, topography and harvesting time of preceding crop. Optimum time of sowing plays an important role in enhancing the yield of crop. It is well known that barley varieties respond sharply for yield and other characters to climatic variations according to the time of sowing. Both IWM and herbicide use alone resulted in significantly lower weed density and biomass and higher weed control efficiency and weed control index than weedy check (Das and Das 2018 and Kaur et al. 2020) [3,8] . The herbicides such as metsulfuron-methyl, sulfosulfuron, carfentrazone and isoproturon have shown excellent efficiency in the control of broad and narrow leaf weeds in wheat and barley crop. The study was conducted to identify efficient weed management options to minimize the weed infestation with minimal nutrient removal by weeds and attain higher barley productivity in Rajasthan (Ram et al. 2020) [13] .

Method and materials

The experiment was conducted during rabi 2025-26 at Agronomy farm, School of Agriculture, Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur. Geographically, the study area is located at 75 o 48'84" E longitude and 26 o 82'47" N latitude and this region falls under agro-climatic zone III A (Semi-arid Eastern Plain Zone) of Rajasthan. The treatments in wheat during rabi seasons comprising 15 combinations having four sowing time 20 th Nov, 30 th Nov and 10 th Dec and weed management (weedy check, weed free, one hand weeding @ 30 DAS, Metsulfuron methyl @ 4.0 g/ha at 30 DAS and Carfentrazone ethyl @ 20 g/ha at 30 DAS) treatments was laid out in a spilt plot design with three replications. Barley was sown at 22.5 cm row spacing using seed rate of 100 kg ha -1 .

Results and discussion

Effect of date of sowing

The highest grain, straw and biological yield was recorded with sowing on 20 th November, which was significantly www.extensionjournal.com superior to 10 th December and remained statistically at par with 30 th November. The straw yield increased by 9.20 and 4.04 per cent with sowing on 20 th November and 30 th November, respectively, over 10 th December sowing. The biological yield increased by 9.26 and 4.29 per cent with sowing on 20 th November and 30 th November, respectively, over 10 th December sowing. Late sowing of barley led to significantly reduced yields due to adverse growing conditions, including low temperatures and shortened vegetative periods (Gurjar et al. 2024 and Rajbanshi et al. 2025) [6,12] . Its might be due to suitable environmental conditions received by crop plants for their growth and yield contributing characters ultimately yield of crop. Similar results have also been reported by Pathania et al (2018) [10] recorded significantly higher yield of barley. This can also be linked to its better accumulation of dry matter and advantageous traits, such as number of panicles per metre row length, harvest index, panicle weight per metre row length, and improved test weight, all contributing to higher yield (Poudel et al 2020) [11] .

Effect of weed management

The highest grain, straw and biological yield was recorded with sowing on 20 th November, which was significantly superior to 10 th December and remained statistically at par with 30 th November. The per cent increased the seed yield by 20 th November and 30 th November in tune of 9.32 and 4.59 per cent over to 10 th December, respectively. The higher yield under timely sowing may be attributed to favourable temperature during vegetative and reproductive phases, longer grain-filling duration and better synchronization of crop growth with available moisture and solar radiation. The present findings are supported by Khan et al. (2025) [9] and Himanshu et al. (2025) [7] . The highest net return (₹91,006 ha⁻¹) was recorded under the weed-free treatment, which was significantly superior to the weedy check (₹54,979 ha⁻¹), one hand weeding @ 30 DAS (₹83,139 ha⁻¹), metsulfuron methyl @ 4.0 g ha⁻¹ at 30 DAS (₹86,997 ha⁻¹) and carfentrazone ethyl @ 20 g ha⁻¹ at 30 DAS (₹81,458 ha⁻¹). The maximum B:C ratio (2.55) was recorded under the weed-free treatment, which was significantly superior to the weedy check (1.68), one hand weeding @ 30 DAS (2.34), metsulfuron methyl @ 4.0 g ha -1 at 30 DAS (2.46) and carfentrazone ethyl @ 20 g ha -1 at 30 DAS (2.26). The higher profitability under weed-free conditions was mainly due to greater grain and straw yields resulting from effective suppression of weed competition. Among herbicides, metsulfuron methyl recorded comparatively higher net returns and B:C ratio because of its effective weed control and relatively low application cost (Bhakar et al. 2026) and Babu and Mishra (2026) [1,2] .

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