Effect of Fertilizer on the Growth of Local Aromatic Rice Varieties

A pot experiment was conducted at the experimental net house of the Department of Soil Science, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet, Bangladesh to observe the effect of fertilizers on growth of local aromatic rice varieties during the aman (summer) season of 2015. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Five aromatic rice varieties (Kalizira: V1, Muktasail: V2, Nagrasail: V3, Maloti: V4 and Chinigura: V5) and four levels of fertilizer (Recommended dose: F1 i.e. 45-10-20-10-0.5 kg ha-1 of N-P-K-S-Zn, 2/3rd of recommended dose: F2, 1/3rd of recommended dose: F3, and Control: F4) were used. All fertilizers were applied as basal during final pot preparation while urea was applied in two equal splits. With few exceptions, all of the growth characters of the aromatic rice varieties were significantly affected due to the application of different fertilizer doses. The longest plant (124.5 cm) at harvest was found in Muktasail with recommended dose of fertilizers whereas the shortest plant (91.40 cm) was noted in Kalizira variety in control treatment. Similarly, recommended dose of fertilizers gave the highest tillers number hill-1 (25.00) in Kalizira at and the lowest number of tillers hill-1 (8.67) was noticed in Chinigura variety at control treatment. The highest grain yield was recorded in Nagrasail variety (65.33 g pot-1) followed by Kalizira (65.26 g pot-1) with recommended dose of fertilizers while the lowest yield (24.31 g pot-1) was observed in Maloti in control treatment. The overall results indicated that recommended dose of fertilizers influenced the growth characters of aromatic rice varieties.