Thesis (BS Biology) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2010

A good weed management system for banana palntation located on slopes should protect the crops from weed competition to prevent banana yield loss. It also needs to maintain certain level of weed population and diversity to prevent soil erosion and organic matter loss and maintain ecological balance. This report covers the first two years of a long term study on the comparisonof two weed management systems, manual and chemical, in a banana palntaion at davao City, Philippines. Five monocot weed specieswere monitored in the study: Eleusine indica, Cyperus brevifolius, Imperata cylindrica, Paspalum conjugatum anf Cynodon dactylon. Based on total weed seedling emergence in the seed banks, field count, anmd biomass monitoring, there were statistically insignificant differences between manual and chemical plots. However, chemical treatment was statistically more effective than manual treatment in controlling some species, such as E. indica and P. conjugatum. Chemical treatment consisting of paraquat and glyphosate, also consistently caused a slight decline in the weed biomass and population. Cehmical weed management was not statistically effective manual weed management in reducing the population of C. dactylon's dominance was due to its sexual and asexual mode of reproduction, germination pattern and plant regeneration after top kill. It is also reprtedly allelophatic. Nevertheles, chemical plots gave satistically higher diversity index and lower dominance index compared to the manual plots.