Productivity and Profitability Assessment of Hybrid Maize by using Nutrient Expert® Maize Model in Eastern Terai of Nepal

Low productivity of maize has led to low profitability of maize production in Nepal. Indiscriminate use of fertilizer and lack of site specific nutrient management technology is always been associated with low productivity of maize. Thus, field experiments on farmer's field were conducted on maize to assess the profitability at two sites of Jhapa district viz. Damak and Gauradaha using Nutrient Expert® Maize model from November 2015 to May 2016. The experiment was laid out in single factorial Randomized Completely Block Design consisting twenty replications with two treatments viz. NE (Nutrient Expert recommendation) and FFP (Farmer's Fertilizer Practice). The analyzed datas revealed the significant differences in terms of grain yield, stover yield, gross return, net return and B:C ratio. NE based practices produced higher grain yield (9.22 t ha-1), which was 86.6 percent higher than FFP (4.94 t ha-1). Similarly, the significantly higher stover yield (12.70 t ha-1), gross return (NRs. 224049 ha-1), net return (NRs. 128970 ha-1) and B:C ratio (2.36:1) were recorded in NE based practice. Thus, NE based practice can be adopted for obtaining higher productivity and profitability in eastern terai and similar agro-climatic regions of Nepal.