Split application of vermicompost to rice (Oryza sativa L.): its effect on productivity, yield components, and N dynamics

Abstract

Organic agriculture is gaining a gradual momentum across the world for improving nutritional quality of food, restoring soil health, generating rural economy, and creating better environmental conditions. Organic agriculture can foster sustainability in subhumid tropical soils low in organic carbon. Nutrient use efficiency of basal soil application of vermicompost is very low. Thus, this study was aimed to test whether nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and crop yield can be enhanced by split application of vermicompost. There is no published information on split application of vermicompost (VC) in rainfed rice. An experiment with rice (cv. Pankaj) was conducted on loam soil in Giridih, India, during 2008 and 2009. Vermicompost, a rich source of readily available nutrients, has high microbial activity and contains growth hormones. Study comprises one of three split applications of vermicompost at different growth stages of rice (i.e., maximum tillering, panicle initiation, and flower). Split application of vermicompost resulted higher yield parameters such as panicles (294 m−2), filled grains per panicle (138), and total spikelets per panicle (142), grain yield (3.91 t ha−1), and NUE, but only if vermicompost was applied at two or three doses. Higher availability of nitrogen (N) in soil with split applications coincides with higher NUE, and thus, split application not promoted N losses. Split application of vermicompost enhances the sustainability of rice cropping system.