Agronomy

The continuous usages of chemical fertilizers have harmful effects on soil organic matter reserves, soil health and environmental safety. The use of Bio-fertilizers like Azolla not only increases the rice productivity but also improves the long term soil fertility. Azolla is a fast growing aquatic pteridophyte which fixes atmospheric Nitrogen by forming a symbiotic association with the Blue-Green Algae, Anabaena azollae.
Azolla is an efficient Nitrogen fixer. It is grown in lowland rice fields because flooded habitat is suitable for it. Under favorable field condition, it fixes atmospheric nitrogen at a rate exceeding that of the Legume-Rhizobium symbiotic relationship. It increases the rice yield equivalent to that produced by 30-60 kg N/ha. As green manure in water logged soil, it enhances the rapid mineralization of nitrogen. It reduces the NH3 volatilization losses through its influence on floodwater pH that leads to the conservation of urea-N in the system to improve the efficiency of N fertilizers. It significantly improves the physical and chemical properties of the soil including
improvement in soil microbial activities. It helps in addition of Organic Matter and release of cations such as Magnesium, Calcium and Sodium. The total N, available P and exchangeable K in the soil and N-uptake by rice can be improved. Therefore,
Azolla application is considered as a good practice for sustaining soil fertility and crop productivity irrespective of some limitations.

Nitrogen is one of the most limiting elements in almost all soils. Thus, proper application of nitrogen fertilizers is vital to improve crop growth and grain yields. Insufficient and/or inappropriate nitrogen fertilizer management is highly damaging to the crops. Optimal nitrogen management strategies aim at matching the nitrogen fertilizer supply to the actual crop demand. The Leaf Color Chart (LCC) is a tool for real time, or need based nitrogen management in rice. LCC based nitrogen management without its basal application assisted to save significant amount of nitrogen (30 to 37.5 Kg N ha-1) in case of inbred varieties (Radha-4 and Sukkha-5) as compared to recommended practice with 120 Kg N ha-1 applied in three equal splits. On the other hand, the requirement of nitrogen for hybrid US-312 was remarkably higher than that of inbred varieties. However, pure LCC based nitrogen management significantly decreased the amount of excess nitrogen application as compared to the all other LCC based treatments. All the nitrogen management treatments including LCC were similar to each other in respect of grain yield formation (4695 – 4891 Kgha-1), but significantly superior over recommended practice (4408 Kg ha-1). The hybrid rice US-312 was significantly more productive (4695 Kgha-1) than inbred varieties, i.e Radha-4 (4089 Kgha-1) and Sukkha-5 (4315 Kgha-1) which differed insignificantly. Thus, pure LCC based nitrogen management was the most economic practice for both inbred and hybrid varieties of rice.

A field experiment was carried out to investigate the growth and productivity of wheat cultivars by compost-fertilizer combination under late sown condition at agronomy farm of Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur in 2014. The purpose of this research was to identify amount of fertilizer and/or manure combination to achieve better yield performance on late sown wheat in Chitwan. Experiment laid out in split plot design with three replications considering four levels of fertilizer or manure combination as main plot factor and five wheat genotypes as the sub-plot factor while net plot size was 4x3 m2. Effect of genotype an d genotype x compost-fertilizer interaction was non-significant for grain yield. However, the ½ compost: ½ fertilizer combinations produced significantly higher grain yield than the 100% complete fertilizer and/or 100% manure. The synergistic response of the compost-fertilizer combinations may have contributed for the greater yield of wheat genotypes. This experiment clearly demonstrated the importance of compost-fertilizer combination on grain yield of wheat under late sown condition.

Potato germination is highly sensitive to ecological conditions. High altitude and low annual average temperature results in tuber dormancy and poor sprouting. Dormancy has become a significant constraint for lowering potato production that hinders the possibility of growing two crops per year. An experiment was conducted from February to April 2020, where two major potato varieties (Desiree and Cardinal) were treated with four concentrations of Thiourea (0, 1, 2, and 3%) in a two factorial completely randomized block design with three replications. Results showed that Thiourea has a significant effect on all observed attributes as per varieties of potato. For Desiree variety, Thiourea (1%) decreased breaking of dormancy by 22 days compared to control (Desiree*Thiourea 0%) and produced the longest average sprout of 7.36cm at 49 days after treatment (DAT). On the other hand, for the Cardinal variety, Thiourea (3%) decreased tuber dormancy by 27 days compared to control (Cardinal*Thio...

Received: 20 March 2021 Revised received: 21 May 2021 Accepted: 15 June 2021 Potato germination is highly sensitive to ecological conditions. High altitude and low annual average temperature result in tuber dormancy and poor sprouting. Dormancy has become a significant constraint for lowering potato production, which hinders the possibility of growing two crop cycles per year. An experiment was conducted from February to April 2020. Two major potato varieties (Desiree and Cardinal) were treated with four Thiourea concentrations (0, 1, 2, and 3%) in a two factorial, completely randomized block design with three replications. Tubers were soaked for 2 hours in different Thiourea solution as per treatments, air dried until excess solution was removed and kept in a dark room on plastic trays. With the progress of experiment dormancy breaking and sprouting parameters like early sprouting, dormancy breaking, sprout length and sprout density were recorded. It was found that Thiourea has a s...

The yield and quality of an annual crop are highly dependent on uniform and rapid germination of the seeds. In case of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia), the germination and field emergence is always a problem as seeds have thick and hard seed coat. Pre-sowing hydro-priming is one of the most suitable, affordable, easily available, and cost-effective techniques in breaking down seed dormancy to enhance germination. Hence, a field experiment was conducted in Surkhet district of Nepal 2020 to assess the effect of different hydro-priming duration on germination and seedling growth of bitter gourd. The experiment was laid out in single factor Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications and seven treatments including different hydro-priming durations (T0: control, T1: 6 hours, T2: 12 hours, T3: 18 hours, T4: 24 hours, T5: 36 hours and T6: 48 hours) of bitter gourd seeds of Palee variety, the most popular variety among the farmers. The highest water uptake and germinat...

This study was conducted in June, 2020 to know the current status of production of fish subsector in fish zone, Mahottari district. For the study, the primary information was collected from 60 households via predetermined semi structured interview schedule. Simple random technique was used to select the respondents. Virtual interview was carried out to confirm the data collected from household as primary data. Different research journal, articles, reports, books, and the publication of national and international agency, government and non- government organization was consulted to collect secondary data. Collected data was verified and entered in Ms-Excel software for descriptive analysis. Problem indexing was done to rank the major problems. Study revealed socio economic preview with production. Majority of the respondents were found adopted fish farming as major source of income and majority of the respondents engaged in this subsector were from Madhesi community. However, it was f...