Abstract:
Water saving rice cultivation
is emerging technique to couple with
irrigation water shortage due to climate
change all over the world. Major issue in
these techniques is to compromise yield and
quality fatalities because of higher unfilled
grain due to nutrients deficiency. Boron
fertilization seems to be big management
technique to improve rice agriculture due to
having imperative role in pollen viability.
Thus, a field experiment was conducted to
see the impact of boron fertilization both
with basal and foliar application methods in
water saving rice cultivation systems.
Boron, with basal (3 kg borax/acre) and
foliar (2% boron) was applied at different
growth stages in rice crop grown under
various rice cultivation systems; flooded
rice, intermittent flooding and drying and
aerobic rice. Boron fertilization both with
basal and foliar application technique
resulted in improved crop performance in all
cultivation systems. Rice plants recorded
highest yield, yield attributing parameters
like productive tillers, panicle length and
grain weight with boron fertilization.
Quality parameters like sterile kernels,
abortive kernels, opaque kernels were
significantly reduced with boron
fertilization in all rice cultivation systems.
Furthermore, normal kernels were enhanced
with basal and foliar application of boron
nutrition. Likewise, maximum water use
efficiency was recorded in foliar application
of boron at panicle stage under intermittent
flooding and drying condition. Foliar
application of boron nutrition at panicle
initiation stage was found to be most
appropriate in water saving rice cultivation
systems.
