Abstract
An experiment was conducted at the Soil Science Field Laboratory of Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during Boro season of 2008 with a view to examining the effect of soil and foliar application of urea on the yield and nutrient uptake of BRRIdhan 29 and to evaluate whether urea foliar application (FA) could replace its soil application (SA) in the rice cultivation. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with eight treatments, each treatment replicated thrice. The treatments were: T1 (control), T2 (282 kg urea ha-1 SA), T3 (1% urea solution FA), T4 (2% urea solution FA), T5 (3% urea solution FA), T6 (94 kg urea ha-1 SA + 1% urea solution FA), T7 (94 kg urea ha-1 SA + 2% urea solution FA) and T8 (94 kg urea ha-1 SA + 3% urea solution FA). The results showed that soil and foliar application of nitrogen significantly influenced the growth and yield of crop. The treatment T2 (282 kg urea ha-1) produced the highest grain yield (5.34 t ha-1). The T6 (94 kg urea ha-1 + 1% urea solution FA) produced the highest straw yield (6.58 t ha-1) of the crop. The lowest grain yield (3.20 t ha-1) and the lowest straw yield (4.19 t ha-1) were recorded with T1 (control). Economic analysis showed that treatment T2 gave the highest marginal benefit cost ratio (7.65) while the lowest value (2.71) was observed with T5 treatment. The overall results demonstrated that soil application of 282 kg urea ha-1 was the best treatment for obtaining higher grain yield, higher nitrogen content of rice and higher marginal benefit cost ratio, and soil application is better than foliar application of urea. Keywords: Urea, Nitrogen; Foliar application; Soil application DOI: 10.3329/jbau.v8i2.7925 J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 8(2): 199-202, 2010
Highlights
Nitrogen is one of the major plant nutrients required for plant growth
The tallest plant (79.0cm) was observed in treatment T6 (94 kg urea ha-1 soil application (SA) + 1% urea foliar application (FA)) which was statistically similar to all other treatments except T1 and T3
The maximum number of effective tillers hill-1 (12.7) was found in T8 (94 kg urea ha-1 SA + 3% urea FA) which was statistically identical to the treatments T2, T5 and T7 with the values of 12.1, 11.3, 11.1, respectively
Summary
Nitrogen is one of the major plant nutrients required for plant growth. For maximizing yield of rice, nitrogenous fertilizer is the kingpin in rice farming. It is a constituent of numerous important compounds found in living cells, including amino acid, protein (enzymes), nucleic acid and chlorophyll (Traore and Maranville, 1999) This element is the most essential element in determining the yield potential of intensified agriculture system (Mae, 1997). Foliar application of nutrients has become an important practice in the production of crops while application of fertilizers to the soil remains the basic method of feeding the majority of the crop plants. In this aspect, the present study was, undertaken to see the effect of soil and foliar application of urea on BRRIdhan 29
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call