Abstract

The field experiments were conducted during both the summer (April-August) seasons of 2016 and 2017 at the Agricultural Farm of the Institute of Agriculture, Visva- Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India to evaluate the response of aerobic rice (Sahbhagi Dhan) to different regimes of irrigation and method of zinc application and their effect on growth and grain yield. From the experimental findings, it was revealed that irrigation regime at 100% of CPE (I100) and irrigation regime at 125% of CPE (I125) improved significantly almost all the growth attributes, yield attributes over irrigation regime at 75% of CPE (I75). Irrigation regime at 100% of CPE and irrigation regime at 125% of CPE recorded significantly higher grain yield (4322 and 4429 kg/ha) as compared to irrigation regime at 75% of CPE (3323 kg/ha) in 1st and 2nd year, respectively. Application of zinc sulphate through seed priming @ 0.3% and through seed coating @ 1.2% also recorded significantly higher plant height, dry matter accumulation, crop growth rate and leaf area index as compared to other method of zinc application. Application of ZnSO4 through seed coating @ 1.2% and seed priming @ 0.3% recorded significantly higher grain yield (4475 and 4302 kg/ha) over foliar application @ 0.5% (4036 kg/ha), soil application of ZnSO4 @ 20 kg/ha (3842 kg/ha) and control (3300 kg/ha). So, irrigation regime at 100% of CPE (I100) in combination with seed coating or seed priming appeared to be the most promising combination influencing higher growth and productivity of aerobic rice in lateritic soil.