Assessing the Yield and Profitability of Rice in Eastern Terai and Mid-Hills of Nepal using Nutrient Expert-Rice Model

Abstract

The productivity of rice in Nepal is very less as compared to other developed countries of world which might be due to less and imbalanced use of fertilizer and lack of site specific nutrient management technologies. Materials and Methods: Different sets of field experiments were conducted at farmers’ field in Jhapa (Dhukurpani-Damakand Gauradha), Morang (Itahara and Babiyabirta) towards the Eastern Terai and Lamjug (Bhotewodar and Sundarbazaar) towards the Mid-hill, Nepal using Nutrient Expert® Rice model from 2^nd week of July to 4^th week of October. The experiment was designed in randomized complete block design with three treatments and 11 replications at two districts separately in Eastern Terai, and five treatments and four replications in Mid-hill. Three treatments allotted in eastern Nepal were NE: Nutrient Expert Recommendation, GR: Government Recommendation, and FFP: Farmer’s Fertilizer Practices; and five treatments allotted in Lamjung were NE: Nutrient Expert hybrid (US-384) and improved (Ramdhan), GR: Government recommendation in hybrid and improved; and FFP: Farmers’ Fertilizer Practice. Different farmers were considered as replication at both sites. Result: The result revealed significant difference in terms of no. of effective tillers/m², plant height, yield at 14% moisture and straw weight. The highest yield (5.26 t.ha^-1) was obtained from NE field which was followed by GR (4.53 t.ha^-1) and FP (4.08 t.ha^-1) in eastern Terai Nepal. Similarly, the highest yield 7.36 t.ha^-1 was noticed in NE hybrid followed by NE improved (5.86 t.ha^-1), GR hybrid (5.46 t.ha^-1) and GR improved (4.71 t.ha^-1) with the lowest yield of 4.77 t.ha^-1 in the Farmer’s Fertilizer Practice in Mid-hills of Nepal. NE based practices produced 1.18 t.ha^-1 higher yield in comparison to FFP and GR produced 0.45 t.ha^-1 higher yield over FFP. The net revenues were found the highest in NE treatment followed by GR treatment and FPP treatment both in Mid-hills and Eastern Terai of Nepal. Conclusion: Comparison of Nutrient Expert® (NE) estimated attainable rice yield provided by the software with actual rice yield observed from the trials in farmers’ field and NE-based fertilizer recommendations proved to be successful in reaching the yield targets estimated by the software. The yield and profitability of Nutrient Expert fertilizer recommended plot was found superior in Eastern Terai and western Mid-hills of Nepal.

Keywords: Farmers’ Fertilizer Practice, government recommendation, nutrient expert, rice yield, random hybrid, improved, NE software, mid-hills, Eastern Terai, site specific nutrient management

Cite this Article

Abhisek Shrestha, Bharti Thapa, Lal Prasad Amgain. Assessing the Yield and Profitability of Rice in Eastern Terai and Mid-Hills of Nepal using Nutrient Expert-Rice Model. Research & Reviews: Journal of Crop Science and Technology. 2018; 7(1): 1–10p.