Assessing Growth, Productivity and Profitability of Drought Tolerant Rice Using Nutrient Expert - Rice and Other Precision Fertilizer Management Practices in Lamjung, Nepal

Sabina budhathoki*, Lal prasad Amgain, Santosh Subedi , Muzafar Iqbal, Nikee shrestha and Sandip Aryal

Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Lamjung Campus, Tribhuwan University, Nepal

*Corresponding Author: Sabina budhathoki, Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Lamjung Campus, Tribhuwan University, Nepal.

Received: July 03, 2018; Published: July 28, 2018

Citation: Sabina Budhathoki., et al. “Assessing Growth, Productivity and Profitability of Drought Tolerant Rice Using Nutrient Expert - Rice and Other Precision Fertilizer Management Practices in Lamjung, Nepal". Acta Scientific Agriculture 2.8 (2018).

Abstract

  The overall production and productivity of rice (Oryza sativa L.) in Nepal is far behind the developed countries and its production has remained constant since several years and the inappropriate use of fertilizers ranked the major challenge in Nepal. A field experiment was conducted in the Agronomy Farm of Lamjung campus to assess the productivity and profitability of drought tolerant rice cultivar (Sukha-3) using Nutrient Expert^®-Rice model and other precise fertilizer management practices. The study was conducted from June to November, 2017 with six treatments and four replications in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). The treatments adopted were: farmer’s fertilizer practices (FFP); Nutrient Expert-Rice model (NE), Leaf Color Chart (LCC, (N) and FFP (P&K); NE (N) and FFP (P&K); and LCC (N) and FFP (P&K). The statistical result revealed the significant differences between the treatments in terms of grain yield, yield attributing characters and economic parameters. The highest grain yield was found in NE recommended fertilizer dose (5.14 t/ha) followed by LCC(N) and NE(P and K) (4.47t/ha). The significantly higher net revenue was recorded in treatment NE (NRs. 64,249/ha) and the lowest net revenue was found in treatment NE (N) and FFP (P&K) (NRs 7,305/ha). While comparing Nutrient Expert (NE) estimated attainable rice yield with the actual rice yield in the farmer field trial, NE- based fertilizer recommendations proved to be successful in reaching the yield targets estimated by NE-Rice software. Hence, the experiment concluded that Nutrient Expert^®-Rice model could be used as a practical tool for decision support system to make more authentic fertilizer recommendation.

Keywords: Farmer’s Fertilizer Practice; Government Recommendation; Leaf Color Chart; Nutrient Expert- Rice; Productivity; Profitability

Copyright: © 2018 Sabina Budhathoki., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.