Finger millet (
Eleusine coracana
L. Gaertn.), a staple and food security crop in Uganda, is appreciated for its nutritional value, tolerance to water deficits, and good storage qualities; however, production requires a lot of labour, particularly for weed control. Thus, there is need to develop weed management strategies that are profitable. Research was conducted on-farm in three districts of eastern Uganda, to evaluate the agronomic and economic efficiency of one or two weedings, with row seeding as compared to broadcast sowing. Weedings were at two or four weeks after sowing. The four treatments were in a randomised complete block design arranged in split-plots with sowing patterns in main plots and weeding frequencies in the sub-plots.
Digitaria scalarum
was difficult to control and was judged to be the most serious weed. Finger millet yield was least under broadcast sowing with one weeding, but was increased by 44.7% with a second weeding at four weeks after sowing. Higher grain yields were obtained with row spacing plus one weeding than with broadcast sowing and two weeding treatments. Yield was not significantly increased by a second weeding under row seeding. Weed population density for row seeding was 50% of that for broadcast sowing. Row seeding was four times more costly than broadcast sowing due to extra labour requirement, but weeding costs were less and returns were greater. The second weeding increased the variable costs of production with broadcast seeding by 55%, but the profit margin increased by 88% and the returns were greater. Second weeding with direct seeding increased variable production costs by 65% but the returns for the second weeding were 289%. Weeding twice is especially profitable with broadcast sowing, but also with row seeding.