Effect of organic foliar nutrients on the growth and yield of rice (Oryza sativa)

Green revolution technologies played an important role in alleviating hunger but had adverse effects on natural resources. Our Indian agriculture completely transformed from begging bowl to self-sufficiency in food grain production with high yielding varieties supported by judicious inorganic fertilizers. In addition to that we have crossed the self-sufficiency level and focusing more on speciality agriculture. But at the same time, we forgot practising and recycling the organic manures which sustained the soil health and quality of produce. For a better yield achievement, combination of organic foliar nutrition will help in management of input practices. Therefore, a field experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Experimental Farm, Annamalai University during Kuruvai season in 2021 to evaluate the effect of organic foliar nutrients on growth and yield of rice. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with nine treatments and replicated thrice. The treatment consisted of amirthakaraisal, panchagavya, vermiwash, fish amino acid, sea weed extract, humic acid, gibberellic acid and jeevamritham with different concentration along with recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF). Short duration rice variety ADT-43 was used as test variety. The foliar spray was done at active tillering and panicle premordial initiation stage. Among the treatments tried out, RDF+Jeevamritham at 3% recorded the maximum plant height (114.70 cm), leaf area index (6.14), number of panicles/m2 (396), number of filled grains/panicle (102.67), grain yield (5752 kg/ha) and straw yield (7953 kg/ha). Therefore, it can be suggested as a substitute source of nutrients for the growth and yield of rice.