Fertilizer choice makes or breaks basmati rice yields
Crop Improvement
If you've ever grown fragrant basmati-style rice or heirloom grains in a home plot, this shows that variety choice and feeding schedule together can swing your harvest by nearly 10 percent.
Researchers grew two kinds of basmati rice, one from Pakistan and one from India called Kasturi, side by side and fed them eight different combinations of fertilizer and compost. The Kasturi variety paired with a balanced mix of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur fertilizer gave the biggest harvest overall, though both varieties actually produced similar amounts of grain by weight. A compost-based option also performed nearly as well, suggesting farmers have more than one good path to a strong basmati crop.
Key Findings
Kasturi basmati (V2) outperformed Pakistani basmati (V1) in plant height (147.60 cm), tillers per hill, panicle length, and grain weight, though grain yield was statistically similar between the two.
The recommended NPKS fertilizer dose (N2) produced the highest grain yield (4.08 t/ha), straw yield (5.76 t/ha), and biological yield (9.85 t/ha), with Tricho-compost at 5 t/ha close behind at 3.89 t/ha grain yield.
The combination of Kasturi variety with the recommended NPKS dose (V2N2) achieved the top overall performance: 4.23 t/ha grain yield, 6.18 t/ha straw yield, and 10.41 t/ha biological yield.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A Bangladesh field trial found that Indian Kasturi basmati rice grown with a recommended chemical fertilizer blend produced the best grain, straw, and overall yields compared to Pakistani basmati and other nutrient treatments.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Growth and Yield Performance of Basmati Rice Varieties under Integrated Nutrient Management in T. aman Season
Basmati rice is valued for its distinctive aroma and quality, but its performance under different nutrient management practices needs to be evaluated under Bangladesh conditions. The present study ...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Basmati is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which originates from the Indian subcontinent, mainly in the regions of Haryana, Punjab, Sindh and many other states and provinces of India, Pakistan and Nepal. As of 2019, India accounted for 65% of the international trade in basmati ri...