Effect of Organic Mulch Materials on Growth and Yield Performance of Rice

Abstract

The study was conducted at the Agronomy Farm, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh, during the period from August to December 2013 to evaluate the weed suppression efficacies of six mulch materials applied with BRRI dhan 56 experimented in a randomized complete block designed plots. The mulch materials used were maize stover; mustard straw; rice straw; sesame straw; water smart weed (Bishkathali) and no mulch as also designated T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6 respectively. The plant height not influenced by mulch materials but the number of tillers hill-1 (25.33) was increased with maize stover. The mulch materials has no significant effect on plant dry matter. It was observed that mulch materials has significant effect on production of tillers hill-1 at 20 DAT, 40DAT, 60 DAT and 80 DAT, also in number of effective and non-effective tillers. Panicle length and number of rakish panicle-1 also pointedly influenced by mulch materials but not to number of rakish panicle-1 and number of filled grains panicle-1. The highest number of unfilled grains panicle-1 (31.22), 1000-grain weight (23.84 g), grain yield observed with rice straw mulch where the straw yield (5.75 t ha-1) with maize mulch and harvest index (50.02%) with mustard straw mulch. The result indicated that mulch materials had influence on rice grain production.