Nutrient use efficiency, nutrient uptake and yield of direct seed rice influenced by integrated weed management practice in the sub-montane zone of Maharastra

The capacity of crop to absorb and use nutrients for maximum yields is demonstrated by their nutrient usage efficiency (NUE). Thus, the three main mechanisms that plants use to absorb, assimilate, and utilize nutrients are included in the NUE idea. Many parameters, including agro-climate, soil conditions, parental rock type, crop factors, crop variety, fertilizers, particle size, soil salinity, acidity, organic matter, humus and water content, pH, aeration, temperature, root surface area, microbial presence, rhizoflora, etc., affect how well plants utilize nutrients. The highest grain and straw yields were recorded by WFC (59.17 q ha-1 and 88.17 q ha-1 respectively) and the lowest by UWC (15.84 q ha-1 and 30.07 q ha-1 respectively). The integration of different weed management treatments significantly enhanced the yield attributes. The treatment pretilachlor 30.7% EC @ 0.450 kg a. i. ha−1 at 2-3 DAS (PE) fb hoeing at 25 DAS fb hand weeding at 40 DAS (T8) recorded the highest grain yield (55.24 q ha-1), straw yield (85.04 q ha-1) and biological yield (140.28 q ha-1). The nutrient uptake by the crop was significantly higher in all the integrated weed management treatments than the UWC. The season-long weed-free situation in WFC was attributed to the highest nutrient uptake by crop (151.51, 63.31 and 138.90 kg ha-1 N, P and K respectively), it was on par with pretilachlor 30.7% EC @ 0.450 130 kg a. i. ha-1 at 2-3 DAS (PE) fb hoeing at 25 DAS fb hand weeding at 40 DAS (T8; 140.52, 59.56 and 129.79 kg ha-1 N, P and K respectively).