Current Advances in Agricultural Sciences(An International Journal)

A field experiment was carried out during June-October of 2014 at the Instructional Farm, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala for assessing the effect of flag leaf nutrition on yield and yield attributes of rice using PTB 52 (Aiswarya) as the test variety. All the yield attributes, viz. productive tiller count (490.19), grain weightpanicle⁻¹ (2.18 g), number of spikelet spanicle⁻¹ (89.11), filled grains panicle⁻¹ and 1000-grain weight (28.55g) were significantly superior with flag leaf nutrition of S₁ (potassium nitrate @ 0.5%). Further, sterility percentage was the lowest (11.94%) with potassium nitrate @ 0.5%. Grain yield recorded with flag leaf nutrition at booting and flowering stages recorded significantly higher grain and straw yield. Flag leaf nutrition with potassium nitrate @ 0.5% recorded significantly higher grain yield (5.95 t ha⁻¹) as well as straw yield (9.29 t ha⁻¹). Gross income (135127 ha⁻¹), net income (70102 ha⁻¹) and benefit: cost ratio (2.07) were significantly higher in flag leaf nutrition with potassium nitrate @ 0.5%. The study revealed that soil application of FYM @ 5 t ha⁻¹ + 90: 45: 45 kg NPK ha⁻¹ recommended for high yielding medium duration wetland rice supplemented with flag leaf nutrition of potassium nitrate @ 0.5% concentration twice at 5 days prior to booting and 50 per cent flowering stages, resulted in significantly higher yield and yield attributes.