Productivity and Profitability Analysis of Old Aged Hybrid Rice Seedling Using Nutrient-Rice Expert and Other Precision Nutrient Management Practices at Lamjung, Nepal

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) being the most important staple crop of Nepal its production and productivity is significantly reduced by old-aged seedling transplantation and imbalanced nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium application. A field experiment was conducted at Sundarbazar, Lamjung  to evaluate the performance of 38 days old US-312 hybrid rice seedling  under fully rain-fed condition with six precision nutrient management practices [Nutrient Expert® -Rice (NE) recommendation, Farmers Fertilizer Practices (FFP); Government Recommendation (GR); Leaf Color Chart (LCC) N and FFP (P & K); NE (N) and FFP (P & K); and LCC (N) and NE (P & K) replicated four times in RCBD design during July to December, 2017. The statistical results showed that there was a significant difference between the treatments in terms of plant height( 105.38cm),leaf area index(4.26), crop growth rate (3.55),effective tillers m-2(374.25), tiller panicle conversion index (94.93%), panicle length (25.31cm), panicle weight (4.25g), fertility (82.35%), yield at 14% moisture (5.79t/ha), straw yield (7.96t/ha), net and gross revenues (Rs122503.1 and Rs272337/ha), B:C ratio (1.81), partial factor productivity(0.958) and total factor productivity (0.091).The grain yield increased by 37.62% in NE-Rice recommendation over the FFP, more than the NE estimated attainable yields (5.5t/ha) that signified further validation of Nutrient Expert –Rice Model under the mid-hill agro-ecological region of central Nepal.Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 6(3): 232-237