STUDIES OF GROWTH, LEAF NUTRIENT CONTENT AND YIELD OF FIVE BORO RICE CULTIVARS

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted to study morphochemical, yield and yield contributing characters of five boro rice cultivars viz. BINA dhan7, Hybrid rice cv. SL-8H, Poshusail, Jirasail and Swarna at the field laboratory of the department of Agricultural Chemistry, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, during the period from February to May, 2014. The experiment was laid out in one factor Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Results revealed that the morphological, physiological, yield and yield attributes were significantly different among the studied cultivars. The hybrid cultivars was shorter in plant height, having more tillering ability, higher leaf number which in turn showed superior growth character and yield. The hybrid rice cv. SL-8H produced higher number of grains panicle-1 which resulted higher grain yield. Further, hybrid rice cv. SL-8H showed superiority in yield contributing characters erect leaves and total dry mass over other local cultivars and it also produced higher grain yield (8.42 t ha-1 ). Among the five rice cultivars, hybrid rice cv. SL-8H had the highest yielding ability. The highest chlorophyll-a content was found in hybrid rice cv. SL-8H and while the lowest chlorophyll-a content was observed in poshusail and jirasail, which were statistically similar. BINA dhan7 contained the highest calcium, magnesium and potassium content in flag leaves while hybrid rice cv. SL-8H had the highest phosphorus content in flag leaves.