Enhancing rice productivity through holistic nutrient management: integrating vermicompost and Azolla for improved agronomic performance and sustainability

Abstract

A three-year multi-location trial on the farmer’s field was conducted in West Bengal, India to evaluate the impact of integrated nutrient management (INM) on the performance of kharif rice cv. Swarna Sub 1. The experiment employed a randomized block design (RBD) across eleven farmers’ fields with similar soil properties, texture, topography, and historical fertilizer application patterns. Three treatments were tested: T₁ – common practice of applying N:P:K @ 55:32:27 kg ha⁻¹, T₂ – soil test-based application (STA) of ∼75% recommended N dose through chemical fertilizer + ∼ 25% through Azolla, and T₃ – soil test-based application of ∼ 75% recommended N dose through chemical fertilizer + 20% N from vermi-compost + 5% N through Azolla. The result of the experiment revealed that the T₃ exhibited significant improvements in plant height, leaf area index (LAI), effective tillers meter⁻², number of panicles plant⁻¹, and 1000-grain weight compared to T₂ and T₁. Among the different nutrient management practices, the T₃ recorded maximum rice grain productivity than the T_1, and T₂, Further, the benefit-cost ratio was noticed significantly higher under T₃ (1.29) followed by T₂ (1.27) and T₁ (1.23). The soil organic carbon (SOC), available nutrient was enhanced by the soil test-based application of ∼75% recommended N dose through chemical fertilizer + 20% N from vermicompost + 5% N through Azolla. Thus, our study indicated that the balanced nutrient application through combined sources (T₃) could improve crop growth; and sustain rice productivity, besides enhancing the farm income, and soil different soil properties.

Keywords:

• Azolla
• chemical fertilizer
• INM
• rice
• soil properties
• vermicompost

Acknowledgements

The author and all co-author sincerely acknowledge the Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya and Dakshin Dinajpur Krishi Vigyan Kendra for providing all financial and logistic support under the guidance of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Pundibari to carry out the experiments in efficiently in farmers’ field.

Credit authorship contribution statement

Conceptualization: BP, SM, NB, NS; investigation, methodology, and data curation: BD, PSP, AC, PG, GD; preparing original draft: BP, NB, NS; review and final editing: JL, NB, NS. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.