Dense sowing of cotton in the "off season" is a strategy adopted by cotton farmers to reduce production costs and increase the profitability of this activity. The objective of this study was to determine the periods of coexistence and weed control in cotton, in seed condensed in the "off season". The experiment was conducted on Farm Pouso Frio in Chapadão do Sul-MS. The cultivar BRS 293 was sown on February 7th, 2010, adopting a 0.45 m spacing between rows at a density of 260,000 seeds ha-1. The treatments consisted of two groups. In the first one, the crop was maintained in coexistence with weed plants for increasing periods of time after emergence, to determine PPWC, whereas in the second group, the cotton remained free from weed competition in the initial periods to determine the TPWC. Analyses wre made of periods of 0, 5, 10, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43, 50, 57, 64, 71 and 165 days after emergence (DAE) for crop-weed coexistence, or initial weed control. The most important weeds were Bidens pilosa, Amaranthus retroflexus, Digitaria horizontalis, Eleusine indica, Commelina benghalensis and Euphorbia heterophylla. When tolerating reduced productivity of up to 5%, PPWC lasted up 4 DAE; TPWC, up to 32 DAE and CPWC lasted for 28 days, between 4 and 32 DAE. When considering the reduced productivity equivalent to the standard deviation of the average productivity of the treatment kept in clean, PPWC lasted up to 1 DAE; TPWC, up to 37 DAE, and CPWC lasted for 36 days, between 1 and 37 DAE.
sowing time; spacing; Gossypium hirsutum; weed competition
