The use of imidazolinones herbicides in tolerant rice genotypes can cause injury to rice plant. Integrated management practices, such as, water and nitrogen management could be able to reduce this problem, either reducing the injury or speeding the recovery. For this reason, it was carried out a field experiment with the objective of evaluating the effects of flood and nitrogen topdressing application timing on the rice plant injury caused by the formulated mixture of the herbicides imazethapyr and imazapic (75 and 25g a.i. L-1) at 1.25L ha-1, in the IRGA 422 CL rice cultivar. The experiment was carried out on 2005/06 and 2006/07 growing season, in a lowland area in the city of Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. The experimental design was a randomized block in a factorial scheme (4x3)+1 with split plot and four replications. The factor A were the flood timing (1, 5, 10 and 15 days after herbicide application - DAT) and the factor B were the topdressing nitrogen application (1, 5 and 10DAT), plus an untreated check. The results showed that in the tolerant rice cultivar, the injury promoted by the use of the herbicide was lower when the nitrogen application was done earlier (until the 5th day after herbicide application) and the flooding was done on the day following the herbicide application or at 15 days after herbicide application, without impact on grain yield. But, regarding to the late flooding (15DAT), this is not a recommendable practice because it can favor the red rice emergence in infested areas.
Clearfield riceTM; flooding management; nitrogen topdressing
