Organic seed management techniques to improve seed yield and quality in rice

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the prime source of food for nearly half of the World’s population and it is one of the most important food crops in Asia. Nearly 91 per cent of world’s rice is produced and 92 per cent is consumed in Asia. Modern intensive agriculture is heavily dependent upon the chemical fertilizers for meeting the nutrient demand. Organic agriculture is environmental friendly ecological production system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycle and biological activities. Field experiments were conducted to study the effect of organic seed crop management techniques on seed yield and quality in rice cv. ADT 45. The mother crop nutrition in relation to organics i.e., neem cake, biogas slurry, vermicompost, Green leaf manure + azolla, poultry manure, neem cake + panchagavya, FYM, Glyricidia sepium + starter solution @ 10% soil application, FYM + panchakavya, vermi compost + panchakavya were compared with inorganic inputs on growth, yield and seed quality parameters in rice cv. ADT 45. The experimental results revealed that T6 treatment i.e., neem cake + panchagavya @ 3 % foliar spray treatment recorded higher values for the growth, yield and seed quality parameters. The above mentioned treatment recorded highest plant height, lesser number of days to 50 per cent flowering, higher total number of tillers, higher number of productive tillers, panicle length, total number of spikelets panicle-1, filled seeds panicle-1, seed yield plant-1, seed yield ha-1 and higher seed quality parameters.