Abstract-Only transplanted Aman (T. Aman) rice is one of the major cropping sequences in the medium saline, irrigation water lacking area of the coastal Bangladesh which requires suitable succeeding crop with early planting in moist soil and to escape damage from the effect of storm surges and water logging due to rainfall in May. A field trial was conducted in 2012 to compare the early dibbled sunflowers in zero tilled soil with traditional tilled one after T. Aman rice. Sunflower was planted on four dates, 14 January (zero tillage in moist soil), 22 and 29 February and 5 March (tilled field at field capacity). Results indicated that dibbling on 14 January produced significantly taller plant, larger head and higher seed yield (3.06 t ha -1 ) than those of other planting dates (2.54 to 2.68 t ha -1 ). The farmers' led validation of zero tilled dibbled sunflowers in the following year confirmed its earlier planting and higher productivity.

A pot experiment was carried out to study the performance of BARI ghom-26 under saline stressed condition in order to find out the optimum salinity level for cultivation. The study was consists of three salinity stressed levels viz. 4.0, 8.0 and 12.0 dS m -1 together with a control 0.0 dSm -1 for the observing the field performance under saline stressed condition of Patuakhali while salinity was applied in 45 Days After Sowing (DAS). This study also revealed plant height, leaf area index, stem dry weight pant -1 , shoot dry weight pant -1 , root dry weight pant -1 , total dry matter pant -1 , number of effective tillers hill -1 , length of spike (cm), , number of grain spike -1 , 1000 grain weight (g), grain yield plant -1 , shoot yield plant -1 , yield ha -1 , harvest index and grain nutrient percentage were gradually decreased with continuing increased in salinity levels. Grain Na percentage reveled the antagonistic salinity effect on N P K absorbance. On the other hand, 4.0 dSm -1 salinity found to be the considerable tolerance level for cultivating the BARI ghom-26 under saline stressed condition of Patuakhali.

Use of marginal coastal saline lands for rice cultivation is one of the options to sustain the net rice cropped area and rice production. On-farm farmer's participatory field trial was conducted in Bangladesh during 2012 and 2013 in non-gher and gher of medium saline ecosystems. The objective of the study was to identify suitable Boro variety for medium saline soils. Salt tolerant rice varieties, BRRI dhan47 and Binadhan-8 were evaluated along with widely adopted BRRI dhan28 in non-gher area. BRRI dha47, Binadhan-8 and Binadhan-10 were tested in saline ghers. Crops were irrigated with water of 1.89 to 3.5 dS m-1 at different growth stages respectively. In saline non-gher, where soil salinity went up to 6.35 dS m -1 , the highest grain yield was produced by Binadhan-8 (4.57 t ha -1 ) followed by BRRI dhan28 (4.23 t ha -1 ). The highest grain yield was recorded in Binadhan-10 (5.14 t ha -1 ) in ghers which was 6 and 12% higher than BRRI dhan47 and Binadhan-8 respectively at soil salinity of 7.43 dS m -1 . Farmers preferred Binadhan-10 as a salt tolerant variety for its higher grain yield and medium grain quality.