The impact of different crop sequences on weed infestation and productivity of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) under different tillage systems

Different crop sequences and tillage systems strongly affect weed flora composition and crop productivity. Exploring the impacts of tillage systems and crop sequences on weed infestation/flora and crop productivity may help in improving system productivity through the selection of optimum cropping sequence and tillage system. This two-year study assessed the impact of five crop sequences, i.e., fallow-barley (F-B), maize-barley (M-B), cotton-barley (C-B), mungbean-barley (MB-B) and sorghum-barley (S-B) on weed infestation and productivity of barley crop under five different tillage systems, i.e., conventional tillage (CT), no tillage (NT), minimum tillage (MT), strip tillage (ST) and bed sowing (BS). Crop sequences and tillage systems significantly altered density and biomass of total and individual weeds, and yield-related traits of barley. The F-B, MB-B or C-B sequences with NT recorded higher weed infestation compared to the rest of crop sequences and tillage systems. However, all crop sequences with tilled soils (i.e., BS and CT) recorded lesser weed infestation than NT. The S-B and M-B sequences suppressed weed infestation under different tillage systems. Bed-sown barley in MB-B sequence had the highest number of productive tillers (251.79 and 273.74), number of grains spike⁻¹ (56.53 and 54.60), 1000-grains weight (40.98 and 40.98 g) and grain yield (3.27 and 3.32 t ha⁻¹) during 1st and 2nd year, respectively. Adoption of bed sowing and crop sequence having allelopathic crop seemed a viable option to suppress weed infestation, whereas crop sequence with legume improved system productivity of barley-based crop sequences.