Abstract:
Field experiments were carried out in 2010 and 2011 cropping seasons at the Institute for
Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria- Nigeria located on latitude110
11’,
longitude70
38’ and 686m above sea level in Northern Guinea Savannah Ecological Zone to
evaluate the effect of pre emergence herbicides on growth and yield parameters of cowpea.
In this study, different pre emergence herbicides were compared for their efficiency on weed
control of various weed species under rain- fed conditions in Nigeria. The different herbicides
used are, S-metolachlor 960 EC @ the rate of 3.5 litre ha-1, pendimenthaline 33% (w/v) EC
@ the rate of 3.5 liter ha-1 and Butalachlor E.C at the rate of 3.5Lha-1
. There was significant
yield increase due to Application of pendimenthaline at 3.5 L ha-1
+ Hand weeding of cowpea
at 6WAS. There was significantly superior performances in terms of plant height, number of
leaves per plant, number of branches per plant, number of pods per plant and grain yield ha1
.
However Leaf area per plant and 100 – grain weight were not significantly influenced by the
treatments. Of all the weed control methods, chemical weed control using pendimenthaline at
3.5 L ha-1 + Hand weeding at 6WAS, significantly gave better results than the other treatments
on both growth and yield parameters.
