Effect of Crop Establishment Methods and Nitrogen Levels on Growth, Yield Attributes and Yield of Coarse Rice

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during kharif 2020 at farm of College of Agriculture, Kaul (Kaithal) of CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar to investigate the response of short duration non-scented rice variety HKR-48 to nitrogen under two different methods of crop establishment. The experiment was laid out in RBD factorial design consisting of two establishment methods i.e. direct seeded (DSR) and transplanted (TPR) as main plot treatments and six different levels of nitrogen (0, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 kg/ha) in sub- plots with three replications. The experiment showed that plants grown under the DSR method had greater height and tiller production at all growth stages but experienced higher tiller mortality later on. DSR also resulted in higher early-stage dry matter accumulation compared to TPR, but there was no significant difference at later stages or at harvest. Although the number of effective tillers did not significantly differ between DSR and TPR, DSR had 16% more grains per panicle with the same test weight. However, the transplanted crop had a significantly higher grain yield (11.9%) compared to the direct-seeded crop. Increasing nitrogen dosage up to 120 kg N/ha positively influenced growth parameters and yield-contributing characters. There was no significant difference between 120 kg N/ha and 150 kg N/ha in respect of growth indicators. Grain yield was significantly enhanced with increased nitrogen dosage, but the difference between 120 kg N/ha and 150 kg N/ha was not significant.