Journal of the Indian Society of Soil Science

Field experiments were conducted during kharif and rabi seasons of 2001 and 2002 with the objective of evaluating the performance of different fertilizer N management strategies including site-specific and real-time N management, on dry matter production, N uptake, yield, yield components and N use efficiency in rice. Among the different N fertilization strategies tried, both site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) with fixed N split approach i.e., 115 ± 20 kg ha⁻¹ in kharif and 140 ± 20 kg N ha⁻¹ in rabi as well as real-time N management viz., leaf colour chart (LCC) with critical value 4 based N management (N applied at LCC=4) (35 kg N ha⁻¹ in kharif and 30 kg N ha⁻¹ in rabi when the LCC value fell below 4) registered higher dry matter production, N uptake, N use efficiency and grain yield than the other treatments. The results suggest that as a simple tool, the adoption of real-time N management viz., the LCC=4 based N management is a profitable proposition of N fertilization strategy for rice.