Vol. 11, Special Issue 12 (2022)

An experiment was conducted at the experimental field of Junagadh Agricultural University, Gujarat, India during summer season of 2021. Three weeding methods viz. flame weeding (T₁), mechanical weeding (T₂) and hand or manual weeding (T₃) were performed in experimental plot. The performance of different weeding methods was compared in terms of weed control efficiency, operational time, energy consumption and cost of operation by using Randomized Block Design. The performance parameters were evaluated and analyzed to draw conclusion in accordance to statistical analysis, in which it was concluded that treatments had significantly (p<0.05) influenced the performance parameters. The weed control efficiency for T₁, T₂ and T₃ were observed as 91.10%, 78.26% and 98.06%, respectively. The operational time for T₁, T₂ and T₃ were observed as 13.24 man-h/ha, 80.56 man-h/ha and 255.75 man-h/ha, respectively. The energy expended manually for T₁, T₂ and T₃ were observed as 2500.24 MJ/ha, 157.89 MJ/ha and 501.27 MJ/ha, respectively. The operational cost T₁, T₂ and T₃ were observed as 4754.62 ₹/ha, 3180.01 ₹/ha and 9590.79 ₹/ha, respectively. Keeping in view the number of labours required and the cost of operation, the overall performance of flame weeding was found better than that of mechanical and hand weeding.