Study of the effect of tillage, seed priming and mulching on direct seeded rice variety sukhadhan-5 in mid hills of Nepal

An experiment was conducted to assess the growth, productivity and profitability of direct seeded rice (DSR) under different tillage, mulching and priming practices. The experiment was laid out in three factors Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The experiment comprises of three factors such as tillage (zero and minimum tillage), seed priming (primed and non- primed) and mulching (mulched and non-mulched) with eight treatments: Zero tillage + primed seed + mulching (T1), Zero tillage + primed seed + non-mulching (T2), Zero tillage + non-primed seed + mulching (T3), Zero tillage + non-primed seed + non-mulching (T4), Minimum tillage + primed seed + mulching (T5), Minimum tillage + primed seed + non-mulching (T6), Minimum tillage + non-primed seed + mulching (T7) and Minimum tillage + non-primed seed + mulching (T8). The phenological, growth, yield and yield attributing characters were observed in the experiment. The results revealed that T3 matured earlier (115 days) compared to other tested treatments. The maximum grain yield (3.64 t ha-1) was obtained in T5 which was supported by high number of effective grains per panicle (139 grains) with high test weight (28 g) while the lowest grain yield (2.29 t ha-1) was obtained from T1 (zero tillage, primed seed and mulching) . Similarly the highest straw yield (7.58 t ha-1) was obtained from T 5 (minimum tillage, primed seed and mulching) which is supported by higher plant height, high no. of tillers per unit area. Among different tested treatments, T5 was found superior compared to others.