Effects of sowing and fertilizer application methods on growth, flowering characteristics and yield of three rice varieties – a field trial in Twifo-Wamaso, Ghana

Abstract

Most indigenous rice farmers have adopted urea broadcasting because it is easy and convenient in terms of time and labour requirements but it results in low yield due to fertilizer loss by leaching and volatilization. In this work, Urea Deep Placement (UDP) treatment was used because it involves one time application of urea fertilizer, results in reduced weed infestation and negligible loss of urea fertilizer due to leaching and volatilization. A field experiment was carried out at the School of Agriculture Teaching, Commercial and Research Farm, Twifo-Wamaso outstation, University of Cape Coast from 2018-2019 to study effects of three sowing methods and determine the impact of two fertilizer placement methods on the productivity of three rice varieties for the minor and major seasons. The experiment was laid out in a split plot design with three replications for the sowing methods and four replications for the fertilizer placement methods. The results showed that, higher paddy yield was obtained in transplanting (2.30 t/ha) method as compared to drilling (1.96 t/ha) and broadcasting (1.57 t/ha) for smallholder rice cultivation. Among the sowing methods, transplanting had higher number of tillers per hill, plant height, paddy yield and straw yield than the other sowing methods. The results clearly suggested that UDP treatments can increase yield better than broadcasting application. Paddy yield obtained under UDP treatment was 2.85 t/ha whiles BCT treatments recorded 2.24 t/ha for smallholder rice cultivation. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that interaction effect of transplanting of various varieties and UDP treatment produced significantly higher grain yield.