Effect of Fertility and Silicon Levels on Yield Attributes, Yield and Economics of Rice Cultivars under Dryland Condition

A Field experiment was conducted during kharif 2002 and 2003 at Research Farm of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi to study the effect of fertility and silicon levels on rice cultivars. Two rice varieties (NDR-97 and Vandana) were tested with three fertility levels [(F₁: N-40+P₂O₅-20+K₂O-15+S-10+Zn-2.5) (F₂: N-80+P₂O₅-40+K₂O-30+S-20+Zn-5.0) (F₃: N-120+P₂O₅-60+K₂O -45+S-30+Zn-7.5)] kg ha⁻¹] and four silicon levels [Si₀ (control), Si₄₀, Si₈₀ and Si₁₂₀ kg ha⁻¹]. The result showed that variety NDR-97 performed better than Vandana with respect to grain yield, yield attributing characters, gross return, net return and quality. Though, increased grain yield, gross return and improvement in quality and yield attributes were observed with increasing fertility and silicon levels, net return was higher with fertility level F₂ and silicon 80 kg ha⁻¹ in both the years of experimentation.