Nitrogen and biodegradator application to trigger ratoon growth and production of rice (Oryza Sativa)

Abstract

Increasing the rice harvest index to 5 times a year through ratoon system was an effort to fulfill food sufficient. Currently, ratoon productivity was only 40-50% lower than it’s parent plant. Utilization of rice stump biodegradator and nitrogen in the ratoon system could be applied to increase ratoon productivity. The aimed of this research was to trigger tillers formation and production of ratoon through application of biodegradator and nitrogen. The experiment arranged in split plot design. The first factor was time of biodegradator application (main plot), i.e at harvest, 3 days after harvest, and 6 days after harvest, while the second factor was time of nitrogen application (sub plot), i.e 3 days before harvest, at harvest, and 3 days after harvest. The dosage of biodegrator and nitrogen were the same for all treatments, i.e 2.2 ml.plot−1 and 8.3 g N.plot−1 respectively. Collecting data was consisted of number of tillers, number of productive tillers, number of leaves, number of grains per panicle, and weight of 1000 seeds. The results showed that all data observed were non-significantly different among treatment of biodegradator, nitrogen, as well as the combination. It was assumed that the dosage of biodegradator and nitrogen were not sufficient to trigger tillers formation of ratoon, so that the effect of application time of biodegradator and nitrogen were not significant.