The objective of this work was to determine the period before interference, total period of interference, and critical period of weed interference in the soybean crop, cultivar UFV-16, sowed at 30 and 60 cm row spacing , maintaining the population in 400.000 plants ha¹ in both row spacing treatments. The treatments comprised two groups, one group kept in the absence of weeds during the initial periods after crop emergence, and the other group kept in the presence of weeds during the same periods of the other group. The periods with and without weeds were: 0; 10; 20; 30; 40; 50 and 60 days after crop emergence. The experiment consisted of 14 treatments, arranged in a randomized block design, with four replications. The soybean critical period of interference, considering a 2% crop yield reduction, occurred between the 7th and 53rd day and the 18th and 47th day after soybean emergence, for the spacing of 30 and 60 cm between rows, respectively. Therefore, when soybean is cultivated using narrow-row spacing (30 cm), weed control must be initiated earlier, as compared to larger row spacing (60 cm).
weed control; co-habitation; critical period
