Influence of Seed Priming on Performance and Water Productivity of Direct Seeded Rice in Alternating Wetting and Drying

Direct seeded rice is promising alternative to traditional transplanting, but requires appropriate crop and water management to maintain yield performance and achieve high water productivity. Present study evaluated the effect of seed priming and irrigation on crop establishment, tillering, agronomic traits, paddy yield, grain quality and water productivity of direct seeded rice in alternate wetting and drying （DSR-AWD） in comparison with direct seeded rice at field capacity （DSR- FC）. Seed priming treatments were osmo-priming with KCI （2.2%）, CaCI2 （2.2%） and moringa leaf extracts （MLE, 3.3%） including hydro-priming as control. Among the treatments, seed osmo-primed with MLE emerged earlier and had higher final emergence, followed by osmo-priming with CaCI2. Tillering emergence rate and number of tillers per plant were the highest for seed priming with CaCI2 in DSR- AWD. Total productive and non-productive tillers, panicle length, biological and grain yields, harvest index were highest for seed priming with MLE or CaCI2 in DSR-AWD. Similarly, grain quality, estimated in terms of normal grains, abortive and chalky grains, was also the highest in DSR-AWD with MLE osmo-priming. Benefit cost ratio and water productivity was also the highest in DSR-AWD for seed priming with MLE. In conclusion, seed priming with MLE or CaCI2 can be successfully employed to improve the direct seeded rice performance when practiced with alternate wetting and drying irrigation.

Differences in Chlorophyll Fluorescence Parameters, Yield and Its Components Between Different Genotypes of Wheat Under Waterlogging Conditions at Anthesis

Waterlogging is one of the most factors limiting wheat production in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Plain of China,especially in the middle and late stages of wheat.Wheat varieties‘Jingmai102’(JM102)and‘Yangmai158’(YM158)were planted to study the dynamic changes of photosynthetic characteristics in flag leaf and the influence of waterlogging at anthesis on the yield and components and dry matter accumulation and remobilization of winter wheat in above ground.The results showed that the SPAD values slightly increased at 1 day after anthesis(d),and then kept decreasing with the increase of waterlogging time.The decrease in SPAD value was more remarkably in YM158 than that in JM102.As for the chlorophyll fluorescence parameters,the photochemical efficiency(Fv/Fm),potential activity(Fv/Fo)of photosystem II,and electronic transmission(Fm/Fo)on photosystem II increased first and then decreased with the increase of waterlogging days after anthesis.The quantum ratio of heat dissipation(Fo/Fm)had a tendency opposite to that of Fv/Fm,and the change range of JM102 was lower than that of YM158.For the grain yield and components,waterlogging at anthesis decreased the dry weight of single stem,grain yield,1 000-kernel weight,spikelet per panicle,and harvest index,and the reduction of JM102 was smaller than that of YM158.As for the accumulation and remobilization of dry matter,the accumulation of dry matter after anthesis decreased significantly under waterlogging condition(WL),and the reduction of JM102 was smaller than that of YM158.In conclusion,waterlogging at anthesis significantly affected the photosynthetic characteristics,yield and components in both varieties,but different varieties exhibited different tolerances to waterlogging stress and YM158 was more sensitive to water stress than JM102.

Nitrogen Uptake Dynamics and Dry Matter Production of Rice in Response to Nitrogen Fertilizer Application

Nitrogen is one of the most important nutrients in rice production but its uptake dynamics remained relatively unexplored. The present investigation evaluated uptake dynamics over the growing season at different levels of nitrogen fertilizer application. The experiment was conducted during Boro season （November-April） at Bangladesh Rice Research Institute experimental farm, Gazipur, Bangladesh. The experiment involved two modem rice varieties-BRRl dhan28 and BRRI dhan29 and six N rates： 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 kg·ha^-1. The N uptake pattern was determined at every 15 days from transplanting to maturity. At 150 kg·N·ha^-1, initially N uptake was 0.1 kg.hal.day1 which increased to 0.2 in BRRI dhan28 and 0.4 in BRRI dhan29, respectively. During 30 to 45 DAT, per day N uptake was 2.0 kg-ha1 in BRRI dhan28 and 2.2 in BRRI dhan29 which increased to the peak at 2.4 and 2.8 kg·ha^-1·day^-1 in BRRI dhan28 and BRRI dhan29, respectively, during 45 to 60 DAT. The grain yield showed a stronger correlation with N uptake during 45 to 60 DAT in both the varieties. The highest N uptake contributed to the highest dry matter production in both the varieties.

Agronomic and Physiological Responses of Rice (<i>Oryza sativa</i>L.) under Different Water Management Systems, Fertilizer Types and Seedling Age

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the agronomic and physiological responses of rice under different water management systems, types of fertilizer and seedling age. This experiment was done at the farm of Agri Park, College of Agriculture, Central Experimental Station (CES), Crop Science Cluster of the University of the Philippines Los Banos, College Laguna during 2013. The strip-split plot design with three replications was used with the two types of fertilizer (vermicompost and chemical fertilizer), water management (with and without standing water) and two seedling ages (10 and 14-d old) were the treatments in the experiment. Chemical fertilizer produced the highest grain yield, total dry matter (TDM), leaf area index (LAI), net assimilation rate (NAR) and crop growth rate (CGR). Most of these characters significantly increased in 10-d old seedlings with chemical fertilizer without standing water. The shorter phyllochron and higher root pulling resistance (RPR) were observed in 10-d old seedlings without standing water. For the variety NSIC Rc 216, the use of 10-d old seedlings grown without standing water with chemical fertilizer is the optimum conditions for the better growth and high productivity.

Design parameters for a small-scale batch in-bin maize dryer

Early season maize is harvested with high moisture content that makes it impossible to store. The sale of early season maize in green form is uneconomical to the farmer. Experience had shown that farmers could hardly make the cost of production from their sales. Also, grain losses are high when maize is harvested green. To minimize grain losses and thereby increase value and the profit margin of the farmer, a grain dryer is necessary for wet grains. Therefore, this paper presents the design and development of a batch in-bin maize grain dryer. Some properties of maize such as moisture content and bulk density were determined to get information required for design of the dryer. The dimension of drying chamber, amount of moisture to be removed in a batch, quantity of air required to effect drying, volume of air required to effect drying, blower capacity, quantity of heat required to effect drying and actual heat used to effect drying were all designed for. A maize dryer was developed with a batch size of100 kg of threshed wet maize. The dryer can be used in laboratory for experimental purpose as well as on the farm for commercial purposes. The dryer can be used to measure drying rates of maize at different initial moisture contents, drying air temperatures, drying air velocities and grain beds. The effects of different drying temperature, air velocity, loading and agitating speed on the quality of dried maize can be investigated with the dryer.

Development of an in vitro protein digestibility assay mimicking the chicken digestive tract

It is difficult to obtain in vivo digestion kinetics data of high protein ingredients using chickens. Collecting kinetics data requires repeated sampling of digesta from the small intestine during the digestion process,which is not easily accomplished due to the anatomical structure of chicken digestive tract. An in vitro technique is proposed for measuring the digestion kinetics of protein sources fed to chickens. The method has a 30 min gastric and 3 h intestinal phase. Five hundred milligram crude protein(CP)equivalent of each meal sample(CP = % N × 6.25) was digested with pepsin(28,260 units) in 50 m L polyethylene centrifuge tubes for 30 min in a shaking water bath(150 strokes/min; 30 mm stroke length)at 41C. The 6.5 mL pancreatin was selected as the enzyme concentration for the intestinal phase, during which time 500 m L aliquots were collected at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180 and 240 min. Samples were diluted 1:820 with HCl and sodium acetate buffer, and then mixed with ninhydrin reagent(2:1) at100 ± 2C for 15 min and spectrometric readings taken at 568 nm. To validate the assay, 5 replications of soybean meal(SBM), corn gluten meal(CGM), corn distillers dried grains with solubles(CDDGS), porcine meal(PCM), fish meal(FM) and casein(CA) were digested. The digestion data were modeled with PROC NLIN procedure, and the intra coefficient of variation(CV) assessed using PROC MEANS of SAS 9.4. The digestion values at 180 min were SBM 95 ± 4, FM 93 ± 3, PCM 68 ± 4, CGM 82 ± 3 and CDDGS 70 ± 2.Intra CV for SBM, CGM, CDDGS, PCM and FM were 5%, 5%, 12%, 10% and 2%, respectively. The estimated fractional digestion rates for SBM, CGM, CDDGS, FM and PCM were 0.023, 0.013, 0.009, 0.024 and 0.013,respectively. In conclusion, the proposed in vitro technique estimated the rate and extent of the digestion of CP for the meals with low intra CV.