Baby corn, mulching, herbicide, integrated weed management, weed index

A field experiment was carried out at Instructional-cum-Research Farm, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat during summer 2023 to study the effects of weed management treatments on growth, yield and economics of baby corn. Ten weed management treatments were tested in randomized block design with three replications. Different weed management treatments significantly influenced the weed density and biomass, growth, yield attributes and yield of baby corn. Application of paddy straw mulching 4 t/ha at 1day after seeding (DAS) followed by (fb) earthing-up and weeding at 25 DAS recorded the highest baby corn weight without husk (13.74 g) and cob yield without husk (1.91 t/ha) and green fodder yield (29.32 t/ha). Pre-emergence application (PE) of metribuzin 1.0 kg/ha fb hand weeding at 25 DAS recorded the next best cob yield without husk (1.86 t/ha) and green fodder yield (28.72 t/ha) with the highest net return of  1,64,000/ha and B-C ratio of 3.32 due to low cultivation cost compared to the paddy straw mulching 4 t/ha 1 DAS fb earthing-up and weeding at 25 DAS.