Nursery fertilization of parental line seedlings for optimizing seed set and yield in hybrid rice CORH2

摘要

In India nearly 65 per cent of the people depend on rice for their daily food. By the year 2020, the earth will home to 8 billion people and 40 per cent of them will be rice consumers. In due course, India must increase its rice production by a minimum of 70 per cent to feed the growing population. Among the various possible genetic approaches available, to break the yield barriers in rice, hybrid rice has proved to be the most feasible. The adoption of the hybrid rice technology by the farmers woulddepend upon the availability of quality seed at affordable cost. This may be achieved by a technology which can enhance and optimize hybrid seed production per unit area. Proper nutrient management of parental lines in the nursery will reflect on crop growth in the main field. Early findings suggested that healthy and vigorous seedlings with desirable seedling characters could be obtained in nursery manuring [1]. The parental lines nursery of hybrid rice, where the plant density is too high, the competition for nutrient becomes obvious. Nitrogen is a main growth element and phosphorus for better root development. The level of fertilizer apphed to the crop in nursery and in development stage is one of the approaches to regulate the physiological and biochemical proportions of the resulting seed for progeny performance [2]. Healthy and vigorous seedlings with higher dry matter content can be produced from nursery with nitrogen fertilization and the initial dry matter and carbohydrate content of young seedlings are believed to help better plants establishment [3]. Application ofphosphorous to the rice nursery greatly influences rooting and promotes early root growth in the soil by increasing the nutrient uptake by seedlings [4]. According to Senthilkumar [5] higher yield in hybrid rice could be obtained with higher dosage of nitrogen applied to the nursery. Hence, knowledge on competitive role of nursery fertilization to the parental lines' seedlings to maximize seed set and yield in CORH 2 was studied.