Critical Interference Period of Weeds with Rice ‎(Oryza sativa L.) in Mazandaran

To investigate the effect of weed interference on the yield and yield components of rice an experiment was conducted in 2014 at Amol and Mahmoudabad cities in Mazandaran. The experiment was performed in a randomized complete block design with 12 treatments and three replications. Treatments to control weeds were of two types. The first treatment consistsed of controling weeds 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 days after rice transplanting and then weeds interfered with plant during rest of growing season. A whole season weed control was used as check. The second type treatment at weed interference until 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 days after rice transplanting and then weeds were controlled during rest of growing season. A whole season interference treatment was used as a weed infested check. The results of variance analysis showed a significant difference for grain yield in either weed free or weed infested treatments between two places. Weed control and interference (except panicle number and biological yield) significantly affected grain yield, grain numbers per panicle and 1000 grain weight. The highest grain yield (3010.83 kg.ha-1) belonged to weed control during whole growing season and lowest grain yield (2075 kg.ha-1) was obtained from weed infested check. Weed infested check resulted in lower grain yield (by 8.31%), panicle number (by 8.33%) and grains number per panicle (by 10.26%) as compared to the control. The critical period of weed control, based on the amount of 5 and 10 percent of yield losses, were fitted by Gompertz and Logestic regression to weed infested weed free treatments, respectively. The results showed that the critical period of weed control in Mahmoudabad region occurred during the days of 22 to 59 and 27 to 36 (from early to end of tillering) based on 10 and 5 percent of yield loss, respectively. The critical point was calculated to be 32 days after transplanting.Thecritical period for Amol region occurred during days of 15 to 54 and 20 to 37 (from early to end of tillering) based on 10 and 5 percent of yield loss, respectively. The critical point was calculated for day 25 after transplanting. In conclusion, the critical period of weed control seems to begin earlier in Amol than in Mahmoudabad and it also had a longer range.