Effect of seedling age and water management on the performance of Boro rice (Oryza sativa L.) variety BRRI Dhan28.

A field experiment was conducted at the research farm of Crop Physiology and Ecology Department, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur, Bangladesh during November 2010 to May 2011 to find out the effect of seedlings age and water management on tillering behavior, growth dynamics, yield and yield contributing characters of BRRI dhan28. The experiment was laid out in two factors randomized complete block design with four replications taking two seedlings age i.e. 15 and 30-d-old seedlings at transplanting and two water management practices viz. continuous flooding and intermittent irrigation. Fifteen-d-old seedlings provided greater ability of tiller production, dry matter accumulation and more leaf area than those of 30-d-old seedlings but the ability was influenced more with intermittent irrigation than continuous flooding. Transplanting of younger seedlings provided more effective tillers hill -1 , filled grains panicle -1 , thousand grain weight and finally grain yield than those of the older one but the younger seedlings interacted with intermittent irrigation significantly to explore all of these parameters. Fifteen-d-old seedlings of took shorter time to be matured than 30-d-old seedlings in both continuous flooded and intermittent irrigated condition. Again the crop matured 2 days earlier in intermittent irrigated plots than continuous flooded plots for both 15 and 30-d-old seedlings. Finally it may be concluded that transplanting of younger seedlings in combination with intermittent irrigation performed the best in tiller production, growth dynamics, yield and yield contributing characters. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/agric.v11i2.17484 The Agriculturists 2013; 11(2) 28-37