This research was carried out during the growing reason 1990/91, in Jaboticabal, SP. It tested the integration between crop practices and lower herbicide doses, sprayed in post-emergente on soybean crop, cultivar Parana. The experimental design was randomized blocks, with sixteen treatments and four repetitions, in four different weed management systems: infested control; controlled with 50% of the recommended (360 g/ha) bentazon dose; controlled with the recommended bentazon dose (720 h/ha) and a control kept clean; two spacings between rows: 30 cm and 60 cm; and two densities: normal and reduced (about 20 and 10 plants per meter, respectively). It was observed that the weed dry matter at soybean harvesting was slightly higher at the 50% dose than at the 100% dose, althought the difference was not significant. The yield observed at the 50% dose reduction treatment was 8.7% lower than at the 100% treatment. A 50% herbicide dose reduction, combined with adequate spacings and densities (30 cm between rows and normal density), is possible, if a loss of less than 10% os soybean grains, as compared with the normal dose treatment, is considered acceptable in view of the benefits of such herbicide dose reduction.
Weed; cultural control; herbicide, reduction of dose; soybean