Comparative Efficacy of Foliar Plus Soil Application of Urea versus Conventional Application Methods for Enhanced Growth, Yield, Agronomic Efficiency, and Economic Benefits in Rice

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at the research field, Department of Agronomy, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur from December 2017 to May 2018 to find out the best treatment of foliar application of urea on the growth and yield of boro rice cv. BRRI dhan28. The experiment consisted of 10 treatments, laid out in a randomized complete block design in triplicate. The recommended doses (RD) of urea, TSP, MOP, gypsum, ZnSO4, and borax were applied during land preparation except for urea at 250, 75, 100, 75, 7, and 5 kg ha(-1), respectively, where urea was applied as per treatment specification. The results revealed that the application of N fertilizer as foliage along with soil significantly influenced the growth, plant characteristics, and yield of BRRI dhan28. There was no significant difference between T-8 (70% in soil and 10% as foliage) and T-9 (100% in soil) treatment regarding the maximum panicle length (21.43 and 20.71 cm), fertile grains (117.40 and 113.30), total grains (134.40 and 130.97), 1000-grain weight (24.56 and 23.56 g), grain yield (5.91 and 5.74 t ha(-1)), straw yield (7.83 and 7.92 t ha(-1)), biological yield (13.74 and 13.66 t ha(-1)), and harvest index (43.01 and 42.02%), respectively, in this study. These results indicated that N fertilization as direct soil application (70%) and as foliage application (10%), i.e., 80% N fertilization, produced the highest grain yield and major yield traits which we received by 100% N fertilization as soil that was practiced traditionally by the farmers. The effect of overfertilization (T-10) was not positive, producing the highest number of noneffective tillers and sterile grains (nonfilled grains). Therefore, it is possible to achieve an equivalent or more yield by saving 20% urea by the combination of soil (70%) and foliage (10%) application as compared to the traditional method of fertilizer application (100% in soil).