Abstract

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most important vegetable crops in India. It is quite popular amongst small and medium-scale commercial farmers due to high net returns. In India, weeds are the major limiting factor affecting the productivity. Based on this, a field experiment was carried out during three consecutive seasons during 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 at Agriculture Experimental Station, Navsari Agricultural University, Paria, Gujarat, India to evaluate the effect of weed control in tomato through mulching and herbicides under drip irrigation conditions. Treatments included different types of color plastic mulch, paddy straw mulch, two pre and postemergence herbicides, weed free and unwedded control. The results showed that significant difference was observed among all the tested treatments in the terms of weed population, plant height, fruits per plant, and yield. Least dry weight of weeds was recorded in the plots treated with black polythene mulch 50μ (125.7 g/m2) followed by red polythene mulch and weed free treatment (134.8 g/m2). Whereas maximum dry weight of weed was observed in unwedded plot (201.3g/m2). Black polythene mulch (50μ) and weed free treatment gave least number of species wise weed count (monocot, dicot and sedges). The maximum plant height, number of fruits per plant and yield was recorded in the black plastic mulch (69.0 cm, 70.52,4.45 kg/plant) followed by silver polythene mulch (66.28 cm, 67.74 number of fruits/plant and 4.28 kg/plant). Thus, black plastic mulch 50μ to be most effective in terms of weed suppression and yield enhancement of tomato crop and must be encouraged for weed management strategies.