Effects of Various Liming Materials on the Growth of Rice under Rainshelter Condition

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of liming materials on the growth of rice under rainshelter conditions and MR 219 rice variety was used in this experiment. The treatments were: 1) T1, no application of lime, 2) T2, 4 t ha-1 of ground magnesium limestone (GML), 3) T3, 2 t ha-1 of hydrated lime, 4) T4, 20 L ha-1 of liquid lime. It was found that the application of 4 t ha-1 of GML had produced the highest rice yield of 8.2 t ha-1. The result showed that as panicle length increase, spikelet per panicle also increases. Relative rice yield is negatively correlated with the soil pH, and this indicates that as soil acidity increase (observed with pH between 2 to 3), the rice yield decrease and vice versa. At harvest, the soil pH exceeded 6 for all the treatment. It was also observed that as soil exchangeable Ca increase, soil pH also increases. Among the treatment, soil treated with 2 t ha-1 of hydrated lime gave the highest exchangeable Ca in the soil of 11.86 cmolc kg-1 soil with Ca concentration of 0.12% in the root. It was observed that liming increases soil pH and exchangeable cations in the soil. Therefore, liming is essential to ameliorate the acid sulfate soils for rice cultivation.