D. SOWMYA*, S. HEMALATHA, U. VINEETHA, A. PRASANTHI AND G. KARUNA SAGAR

Department of Agronomy, S.V. Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Tirupati-517 502.

ABSTRACT

A field experiment was conducted during rabi, 2021-22 on sandy clay loam soils of Agricultural Research Station, Nellore, Andhra Pradesh to study the “Precision nitrogen management in rabi rice [Oryza sativa L.]”. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design and replicated thrice. The treatments included Control, Farmer’s practice, Soil Test Based Nitrogen Fertilization, Recommended Dose of Nitrogen along with 2 LCC (Leaf color chart), based, 2 NDVI (Normalized difference vegetation index) based and 2 SPAD (Soil Plant Analysis Development) based N management with critical levels of LCC (4,5), NDVI (0.7, 0.8) and SPAD (35, 40). The variety NLR 3354 was tested in the present experiment. Among the different nitrogen management practices tried, higher yield and nutrient uptake was recorded with fixed time nitrogen management in FP and STBNF but was on par with LCC-5 (T₆), NDVI-0.8 (T₈) and SPAD-40 (T₁₀) with a saving of 45% and 27% of N respectively along with maintenance of high post-harvest soil nutrient status, while significantly lower values were recorded with control (without N) (T₁).

KEYWORDS: Farmer’s practice, Soil Test Based Nitrogen Fertilization, Leaf color chart.