Vol. 18 No. 1
Improving yield of rice (Oryza sativa L.) by managing blast disease through On Farm Trial (OFT) in old alluvial zone of West Bengal
Author(s): P. Bhowmik and P. Biswas
Abstract: An On Farm Trial was conducted to analyze rice production, yield characteristics, growth features, association between rice blast disease incidence and meteorological parameters and economics during kharif season of 2016 and 2017 with rice variety MTU-1010 in old alluvial zone of West Bengal. With four treatments and seven replications, a randomized block design was used to set up the experiment. Treatments included were T1 (seed treatment with carbendazim 50WP), T2 (seedling root dipping in hexaconazole 5EC), T3 (T1+T2) and farmers’ practice (FP) or control. Plant height at different growth stages, effective tillers hill-1, spikelet panicle-1 and test weight were maximum during both years in T3. It also exhibited slower progression of disease incidence with average incidence of 4.4% (2016) and 4.0% (2017) and disease control over farmers’ practice of 84.9% (2016) and 86.7% (2017) with lowest AUDPC of 199.3% (2016) and 180% (2017). Blast showed insignificant positive (average relative humidity) and negative (maximum and minimum temperature and rainfall) correlation in all treatments during both years; only treatment T1 and T3 (2017) exhibited an insignificant positive correlation with rainfall. The highest yield (6513 and 6653 kg ha-1) and increased yield over control (42.9% and 45.1%) were in treatment T3 during respective years. For subsequent years, benefit-cost ratios were found to be 46.83% and 48.36% higher in contrast to farmers’ practice. The overall assessment confirms the significant superior performances of T3 in all respect.