Effect of Seedling Age on Growth and Yield of Local Aman Rice Varieties

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at the Dr. Purnendu Gain Field Laboratory Agrotechnology Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna from July to December 2011 to find out effect of seedling age on yield and yield attributes of different local aman rice varieties. The experiment was laid out in a double factor randomized complete block design with three replications. The experiment was consisted three local aman rice varieties such as Rani selute, Jatai balam and Basful balam and four different seedling ages viz; 15, 30, 45 & 60 day old seedlings. Variety and seedling age had significant impact on plant height and tiller number at different days after transplanting. Variety Rani selute produced the highest plant height, tiller number, effective tiller number hill⁻¹, panicle length, 1000 grain weight, grain yield and biological yield. While variety Jatai balam possessed the number of grains panicale⁻¹. Among the four seedling ages the performance of 15, 30, and 45 day old seedling were found better where 30 day was the best. In respect of age, the performance of 60 day old seedling was found poor. Interaction of variety and seedling age had significant effect on plant height, panicle length, number of grains panicale⁻¹, number of filled grains panicale⁻¹and 1000 grain weight. The highest number of grains panicale⁻¹(110.33) and the filled grains panicale⁻¹(92.07) were observed in Jatai balam in response to 15 day old seedling as well as the highest 1000 grain weight(29.93g) was also found in the same variety due to 30 day old seedling. Grain yield, biological yield and harvest index did not vary significantly due to the interaction of variety and seedling age. However numerically the highest grain yield (4.34 tha⁻¹) and biological yield (12.57 tha⁻¹) was recorded from Rani selute with 30 day old seedling.