Economising Fertility in Temperate Rice through Green Manuring under Kashmir Valley Condition

Green manuring is an inexpensive eco-friendly alternative effective technology in economizing the agricultural production system ensuring productive capacity of soil without causing environmental problem under mounting prices of fertilizers. Keeping this in view, field experiments were conducted at Division of Agronomy, SKUAST-K during Kharif seasons of 2006 and 2007 to compare organics, chemicals and their integration in temperate rice under Kashmir valley conditions. The treatments comprised of two standard controls of recommended fertilizer dose (120:60:30 kg/ha of N:P2O5:K2O, and no nutrients, respectively) four organic manures (FYM @30 tonnes/ha, Sesbania, Sunhemp and Robinea leaf green manuring, respectively), three green manuring crop combined with 15 tonnes/ha of FYM and three integrated combinations of 25% RDF + 7.5 tonnes FYM/ha with Sunhemp, Sesbania and Robinea green manuring. Among integrated nutrient sources, 25% RDF + FYM @7.5 tonnes/ha + Robinea leaf green manuring recorded highest yield, net profit (15,063 and 16,427) and BCR (0.44, 0.45). The soil fertility under integrated nutrient package (25% RDF + 7.5 tonnes/ha FYM and Sesbania or Robinea leaf green manuring improved significantly in terms of OC and available N, P and K to provide available nutrients to harvest a comparable yield of rice nearer to RDF treatment