Effect of Organic Mulch materials on Growth and Yield Performance of rice

Abstract

The study was conducted at the Agronomy Farm, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh, during the period from August to December 2013 to evaluate the weed suppression efficacies of six mulch materials applied with BRRI dhan 56 experimented in a randomized complete block designed plots. The mulch materials used were maize stover; mustard straw; rice straw; sesame straw; water smart weed (Bishkathali) and no mulch as also designated  T₁, T_2, T_3, T₄, T₅ and T_6  respectively. The plant height not influenced by mulch materials but the number of tillers hill^-1 (25.33) was increased with maize stover. The mulch materials has no significant effect on plant dry matter. It was observed that mulch materials has significant effect on production of tillers hill^-1 at 20 DAT, 40DAT, 60 DAT and 80 DAT, also in number of effective and non-effective tillers. Panicle length and number of rakish panicle^-1 also pointedly influenced by mulch materials but not to number of rakish panicle^-1 and number of filled grains panicle^-1. The highest number of unfilled grains panicle^-1 (31.22), 1000-grain weight (23.84 g), grain yield observed with rice straw mulch where the straw yield (5.75 t ha^-1) with maize mulch and harvest index (50.02%) with mustard straw mulch. The result indicated that mulch materials had influence on rice grain production.