Influence of cultural treatments in weed control and cassava productivity cultivated under no-tillage system

Abstract

Cassava cultivation is traditionally done with conventional soil preparation. Other techniques such as no-tillage and minimum tillage are currently being adopted. Differences in weed development have been recorded with conventional tillage as compared to that with no-tillage. Manual and mechanical treatments accomplished 30 and 60 days after planting of cassava cultivated under conventional no-tillage are evaluated. Data on yield, effort in manual harvesting and starch concentration were collected. Results indicated that, in the absence of weeds, yield (25759 kg ha^-1) was not statistically different from that obtained with manual weeding 60 days after planting (20952 kg ha^-1). Manual or mechanical weeding 30 days after planting did not yield satisfactory. On the contrary, it increased cropping labor and decreased root starch concentration due to weed competition