Differential Weed Suppression Ability In Selected Wheat Varieties Of Bangladesh

Weed is one of the major pests of wheat causing substantial yield losses and hence sustainable weed management is a huge challenge for its cultivation. Weed competitive crop variety is considered to be a vital and eco-friendly tool for integrated weed management. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the weed competitiveness of the available Bangladeshi wheat germplasms for their possible inclusion as a component of integrated weed management. The present research was designed to evaluate the weed competitiveness of ten recently released wheat varieties of Bangladesh by growing them under weedy and weed-free conditions. Plots without wheat (weed monoculture) were also maintained. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design and replicated thrice. Results showed that wheat varieties varied widely in their weed competitiveness and yielding ability. Among the wheat varieties studied, BARI gom 27 allowed the minimum weed growth (87.0 gm-2) while BARI gom 21 allowed maximum weed growth (188.9 gm-2). Grain yield ranged between 1.9 t ha-1 (BARI gom 23) and 3.7 t ha-1 (BARI gom 24) under weed-free condition, and between 1.3 t ha-1 (BARI gom 21) and 2.9 t ha-1 (BARI gom 28) under weedy condition. Weed inflicted relative yield loss ranged from 17.8 to 51.2% among the varieties. Although BARI gom 24 was the highest yielder but its competitive ability against weed was very poor. On the other hand, BARI gom 28 and BARI gom 30 appeared as the most weed competitive varieties (17.8 and 24.9% relative yield losses, respectively) with moderate grain yield. BARI gom 30 was the best in terms of yield, but BARI gom 28 ranked first in terms of weed competitiveness. Therefore, considering high feasibility of growing weed competitive variety as a tool for sustainable weed management, breeding for strongly weed competitive wheat variety with high yield potential is necessary.