Productivity Enhancement of Hybrid Rice Through Levels of NPK, Bio-stimulants and Silica

Rice is the important staple food for more than 60 per cent of the world’s population. The increasing population growth with the declining land and water resources necessitates an increased rice productivity for solving food shortage problem and to ensure the food security. With this background, field experiment was conducted in the Experimental Farm, Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar - 608 002 during Late samba season (September, 2022- February, 2023) to study the effect of graded levels of NPK, bio-stimulants and silica application in hybrid rice. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design, replicated thrice with eleven treatments. Among the different treatments experimented, the application of 125% RDF + soil application of humic acid granules @ 25 kg ha1 + soil application of silica granules (soil conditioner) @ 25 kg ha-1 (T11) recorded the highest yield attributes, yield and harvest index of hybrid rice. Hence, treatment T11 remarkably boosted the productivity of the hybrid rice. Therefore, this treatment can be recommended to the farming community to enhance the yield of the hybrid rice.