Evaluation of different pre-emergence herbicides for early-stage planting of Pineapple (Anonos Comosus).

The presence of weeds slows down the growth of pineapple trees (Ananas comosus) and affects the quality of the fruit. This is because pineapple plants and weeds compete to get enough sunlight, water, and nutrients in the soil for the process of photosynthesis and plant respiration. The study aims to investigate the effect of two different types of pre-emergence herbicide application to the early vegetative growth stage of pineapple. The pineapple variety MD2 was used for this study. Three different treatments were conducted: untreated (control) and treated (diuron and atrazine) pre-emergence herbicide. Vegetative growth of pineapple was measured by plant height (cm), leaf length (cm) (longest central leaf), number of leaves and leaf width (cm). A field trial was conducted at early stage of pineapple planting. Weed population (m2) was measured in 25 days and 50 days after spraying the different herbicides The result showed that there are no significant differences (p > 0.05) between the four different treatments in terms of plant height (cm), leaf length (cm), number of leaves and leaf length (D). However, there is a significant different (P < 0.05) in the 25 days after treatment and significant value for 50 days after treatment (P < 0.05) between the treatments. Pre-emergence herbicide application for treatment 1 (diuron) is the most effective herbicide for weed control as compared to treatment 2. Moreover, at 25 and 50 days after treatment, the data showed that there were no weed populations emerged with Ti (diuron) treatment at the planting site. This study will help researchers and farmers to choose the method of pre-emergence herbicide as a weed control in the pineapple plantation.