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Rice is the most important human food crop in the world. In Bangladesh rice is cultivated throughout the year as Aus, Aman and Boro. Among them boro rice is generally cultivated in November to March. More than half of the total production (55.5%) is obtained in this season. Generally, farmers use more than the recommended number of seedlings during transplanting. The number of seedlings plays a vital role in the growth, development and yield of rice. The aim of this experiment was to determine the number of seedling(s) during transplanting for boro rice varieties for higher growth and yield. This investigation was carried out at the research field of BINA sub-station under Khagrachari sadar upazila in Bangladesh during December 2017 to May 2018. The experiment tested three seedling numbers; S1 (Single), S2 (double), S3 (triple) and four varieties V1 (BRRI dhan-28), V2 (Binadhan-14), V3 (Heera-1), V4 (Shakti-2) in a factorial RCB design with three replications. Results revealed that significantly highest plant height was obtained with treatment S1´V3 (110.30 cm) and S3´V4 (109.4 cm) while the maximum number of tillers/hill from S3´V1 (16.93) and S2´V1 (16.07). In terms of production, treatment combination S3´V4 gave the highest grain (10.40 t/ha), straw (10.40 t/ha) and biological yield (10.40 t/ha). Harvest index was the highest in treatment S1´V4 (59.48). From the above findings it was observed that single seedling performed better than two and three seedlings per hill in terms of getting optimum yield of boro rice varieties. Hence, the rice growing farmers should avoid the use of extra seedlings during transplanting to save labor, time and money.

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Potatoes are one of the most common and important vegetable crops in the world and carrying different health benefits that make them all the more essential as a staple dietary item for much of the world’s population. The high nutrient content, ability to adapt to marginal environments, relative ease of cultivation and low cost and high productivity are attributes that make potatoes one of the principal and most important sources of food and income for developing countries. Considering the importance of organic manure for potato cultivation, the experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of four organic fertilizers on potato tuber production in sandy loam soil. The most popular and easily available two potato cultivars namely Cardinal and Diamant and four organic fertilizers viz., cowdung at the rate of 8 t ha-1, chicken manure at the rate of 8 t ha-1, Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS) developed organic fertilizer at the rate of 740 kg ha-1 and Northern organic fertilizer at the rate of 500 kg ha-1 along with a control. The results revealed that the plant height, number of leaves, leaves fresh weight, yield contributing characters and yield were significantly different and higher in organic fertilizers over control. The highest plant height, leaf number, leaf fresh weight, total dry matter, absolute growth rate, tuber growth rate, tubers plant-1 and larger tuber size were observed in chicken manure which resulted the highest tuber yield (29.71 t ha-1) followed by cowdung (28.67 t ha-1) with same statistical rank. The third highest tuber yield was recorded in RDRS organic fertilizer (26.42 t ha-1) and Northern organic fertilizer (26.00 t ha-1). Besides, the potato cultivar, cardinal gave the highest tuber yield (26.39 t ha-1) compare to diamont (24.57 t ha-1). Finally, the potato cultivar cardinal and organic fertilizers, chicken manure followed by cowdung are recommended for potato cultivation in Rangpur region due to the highest yield production as well as maximum benefit-cost ratio.