Research Article
B.A Akinola*& A.E Salami
Abstract
The influence of three tillage methods; plough and harrow, use of hoe and minimum tillage were evaluated for Tithonia management in a maize field. Tillage treatments employed were plough and harrow, use of hoe and minimum tillage (clearing and packing only).The experiments were laid down in Randomized Complete Block with three replicates to give 9 experimental units.The experiments were conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria (April-September, 2009 and May-August 2010). Teaching and Research Farm Federal College of Agriculture Akure, Nigeria (May-August 2010) and Agricultural Machines and Machinery Training Centre Akure, Nigeria (July-October, 2009).Data collected on growth parameters and yield of maize as well as Tithonia density and biomass were subjected to ANOVA and means separated by DMRT. The conventional tillage (plough and harrow) resulted in significantly (at 5% by DMRT) higher maize grain yield (3.37 t/ha), lower Tithonia shoot dry weight (1.37 t/ha) compared with the respective values of 2.51 t/ha and 1.91 t/ha for hoe weeding as well as 2.12 and 1.76 t/ha for minimum tillage at 5% by DMRT. The highest gross margin (GM) of N148.600.00 was obtained from plough and harrow treatment, similarly, the highest Marginal Rate of Returns of 2.80 was obtained from plough and harrow treatment, The relative abundance of Tithonia at 8 and 12 WAP was between 93.1 and 98.6 % and this indicates that the plant could be a dominant weed in a farmland.