GROWTH AND YIELD OF T. AMAN RICE VARIETIES AS AFFECTED BY SEEDLING NUMBER HILL 1 AND UREA SUPERGRANULES

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the experimental field of Sher-e-iIangla agricultural university during July to December 2007 to find out the effect of four levels of seedling hill4 vii; I. 13 and 4 and two forms of nitrogen fertilizer-prilled urea (PU) and urea supergranules (USC) on growth, yield and yield components of modem (BRRI Dhan 44) and traditional (Nizershail) transplant oman rice. The experiment was laid out in a split- split-plot design with three replications. Urea was top dressed 58 kg N haS ' in three equal splits at 10, 30 and 50 DAT. The USC (1.8 g) was placed at 5-10cm soil depth at 10 DAT in the center of four hills in alternate rows 1 granule in one spot to supply 58 kg N haS '. Results showed that rice varieties differed significantly in all growth characters and BRRI Dhan 44 produced higher grain yield (4.85 t ha'). Two seedlings hill' gave the highest grain yield (3.96 t hi') while four seedlings hill' had the highest numbers of total tiller hill', leaf area index and total dry matter. USC performed well in growth and gave higher grain yield (12.2%) over PU. Interaction results showed that significantly higher grain yields were given by transplanting one seedling of 13RRl Dhan 44 (5.38 t hi'), application of USC in I3RRI Dhan 44 (5.08 t hi') and transplanting one seedling hilr' with application USC (4.18 t had) and finally placement of USC by transplanting one seedling hill' of BRRI Dhan 44 (5.77 hi'). The higher grain yield was attributed mainly to the number of effective tillers bill', filled grains panicle' and 1000-grain weight.