No abstract

A number of experiments were conducted at the Farming Systems Research and Development (FSRD) site, Palima, Tangail for three consecutive years to evaluate the efficiency of USG application in comparison with prilled urea on the yield and yield attributes of cabbage (cv. Atlas-70). There were five treatments, T1= N195 (recommended N dose for HYG, used as prilled urea), T2= N195 (recommended N dose for HYG, used as USG), T3=N175 (N 10% reduction of recommended N dose as USG), T4= N155 (N 20% reduction of recommended N dose as USG), and T5= N105 (Farmers' N dose used as prilled urea). Treatments Tl-T4 received recommended dose of other nutrients (P56K162S13Mo0.6CD3t) and T5 received P25K90S0Mo0CD51 Yield and yield-contributing characters of cabbage significantly responded to the application of USG. The highest head yield (78.1 t/ha) was obtained with the recommended dose of N as USG, and 10% (77.1 t/ha), and 20% (72.0 t/ha) less than the recommended dose of N as USG also produced higher yield than recommended prilled urea-N. Application of USG was found more efficient than prilled urea and the treatment N195P56K162S13Mo0.6CD3t (recommended N as USG for HYG) was found profitable for cabbage cultivation in terms of yield and the treatment N175P56K162S13Mo0.6CD3t (10% N reduction of recommended N dose as USG) was found profitable in terms of economic returns. Keywords: USG; prilled urea; cabbage. DOI: 10.3329/bjar.v35i2.5889Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 35(2) : 267-272, June 2010

Crop cultivation in the coastal saline area of Bangladesh during rabi season is limited due to late harvest of Aman rice, shorter winter period, difficulty in tillage, soil salinity, lack of fresh irrigation water etc. Zero tillage potato cultivation with mulching could minimize these obstacles and thereby increase system productivity. However, selection of mulching material is crucial for higher yield and economic return. An experiment was conducted at coastal saline area of Bangladesh during rabi 2018–19 to observe zero tillage potato performance under different mulch materials. Three locally available mulch materials were employed in the trial viz. rice straw (T1), rice husk (T2) and compost (T3) as control. Additionally, treatment T1 and T2 also received same amount of compost as T3. Results from single factor randomized complete block design with three replications showed that leaf dry matter, leaf area index and number of tuber per plant did not varied significantly. Significantly highest stem and root dry matter were found from T1 (69.56 kg ha−1) and T3 (138.92 kg ha−1), respectively. Rice husk (T2) produced numerically highest leaf dry matter (372.74 kg ha−1) and significantly lowest root dry matter (87.92 kg ha−1), which ultimately produced highest tuber yield (13.99 t ha−1) followed by rice straw (T1) (11.08 t ha−1). However, weed growth was highest in rice husk (1.16 t ha−1). Mulch treatments conserved 3.5 to 7.45% more moisture and 4.3% less salinity than control. Between two mulches rice straw is suggested for its profitability since it remains unused and readily available.

An experiment was conducted in south-western coastal saline area of Khulna district ofBangladesh (22°35′53.463″ N latitude and 89°27′42.617″ E longitude) during the period fromDecember 2018 to March 2019. The experiment was laid out in two factor Randomized CompleteBlock (RCB) design with three replications. Factor A included two potato varieties (V1= BARI Alu-72 and V2= BARI Alu-73) and factor B consisted with three rates of rice straw mulch viz. M1= 4 tonha−1, M2= 7 ton ha−1 and M3= 10 ton ha−1. Average thickness of mulch treatments were 11 cm, 13 cmand 15 cm, respectively. Mulch rate had significant effect on different soil and crop parameters,however there was no significant effect observed in variety and variety vs mulch rate. At harvest,highest plant height (50.7 cm), stem dry weight (1.33 g plant-1) and leaf dry weight (7.29 g plant−1)were recorded from M3 treatment. In case of yield components and yield, M3 treatment gavehighest value for number of tuber per plant (7.11), individual tuber weight (59.38 g), tuber yield(15.62 t ha−1), haulm yield (2.26 t ha−1). Significantly highest moisture was conserved by M3 treatment(27.13%) at harvest as well effectively controlled salinity (ECe) increase (only 1.25% increase thaninitial). So, it is observed that rice straw @ 10 t ha-1 is most suitable for zero tillage potato cultivationin the coastal area of Bangladesh.

The major cropping pattern in the South-western coastal area of Bangladesh is transplanted aman rice followed by fallow during the rabi season (November to March) and kharif-I (April-July) season. Crop production during rabi season is limited due to various ecological factors including soil salinity, lack of fresh irrigation water, short winter period, late harvest of previous aman rice, heavy clay soil etc. Tomato is a popular winter crop in that area which is mainly cultivated around homestead and ridges of fish pond, where soil salinity and tillage is not a major problem. An attempt was taken to grow tomato in Khulna district of Bangladesh after T. Aman rice harvest during 2018–19 in order to investigate tomato performance at different mulch materials and Nitrogen sources. The two factors experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Mulch materials viz. rice straw (M1), black polythene (M2) and no mulch (M3) were employed as factor one and nitrogen source viz. prilled urea (N1) and urea super granule (N2) were assigned as factor two. Results showed that there was no interaction effect of mulch and nitrogen treatments. Single effect of mulch and nitrogen treatments showed that highest fruit yield was found from rice straw (M1) (17.32 t ha−1) and prilled urea (N2) (15.64 t ha−1), respectively. So, tomato can be grown with rice straw mulch along with prilled urea for higher economic return (MBCR 2.24).