Abstract

Field experiments were conducted at Cropping Systems Research Centre, Karamana, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala during summer/third crop/puncha season in 2007 and 2008 to find out the effect of nutrient sources under different management systems. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with four replicates. The treatments consisted of four management systems, viz., System of Rice Intensification SRI (M₁), Integrated Crop Establishment Method (ICM) (M₂), Package of Practices (PoP) (M₃) of Kerala Agricultural University and Conventional Management Practices (M₄) in main plot. Nutrient sources, such as organic sources (S₁), integrated nutrient sources (S₂) and inorganic sources (S₃) were the sub plot treatments. Conventional management practices (M₄) recorded higher values of growth (height of plants, number of leaves hill^-1, leaf area index (LAI) and number of tillers per unit area) and yield attributes (No. of productive tillers m^-2, grain and straw yield). Sources of nutrients did not influence growth characters in Njavara. Among the nutrient sources, higher number of grains panicle^-1, filled grains panicle^-1 and crop yield (grain and straw) were recorded under integrated nutrient source than organic and inorganic sources. The maximum net return (30,562 Rs ha^-1) and B:C ratio of 2.40 were also noted under the conventional management practices with integrated nutrient source.

Key words: Rice establishment techniques, economics, productivity, Njavara rice.