Nursery Management Influences Yield and Yield Attributes of Rainfed Lowland Rice

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in Sundarbazar, Lamjung during May to November 2010 to understand the impact of nursery management on the yield and yield attributes of rainfed lowland transplanted rice. The experiment was conducted in three factors factorial randomized complete block with three replications. Thus a total of twelve treatments were used consisting of three levels of seeding density (600, 300 and 100 g m-2 of nursery bed); two levels of nitrogen fertilization (0 and 30 kg N ha-1 in nursery bed after 15 days after sowing) and two ages of seedlings (20 and 40 days). The results revealed that 20 days old seedlings obtained from low density seeding with nitrogen fertilization in the nursery produced the highest grain yield (6.96 t ha-1) where as the 40 days old seedlings from high density seeding without nitrogen fertilization produced the lowest grain yield (5.74 t ha-1). The results indicated that seedlings obtained from high seeding density (600 g m-2) has the lowest durability in the nursery which is a common practice under rainfed mid hill conditions of Nepal. Nitrogen application in nursery increased the rice yield of younger seedlings as compared to older seedlings.