YIELD RESPONSE OF SELECTED RICE VARIETIES TREATED WITH DIFFERENT PHOSPHORUS LEVELS AND MYCORRHIZAE SP
This study was conducted to evaluate the yield performance and yield response of selected rice cultivars to applying different levels of Phosphorus and Mycorrhizae sp. under potted conditions coinciding with typical rice production conditions. A three-level factor experiment, namely method of seed treatment (seed coating and seed biorpiming) as the main treatment, rice varieties (NSIC Rc 222 and NSIC Rc 480) as subplot treatment, and Mycorrhizae + levels of Phosphorus (0, recommended P (RP), recommended Mycorrhizae, M+50% of RP, M+100% RP and M+150% of RP) as sub-sub plot treatment replicated four times was executed. Results of yield parameters such as the number of productive tillers, panicle/hill, filled grains, yield, harvest index, and yield were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and differentiated using Least Significant Difference (LSD) test and Tukey's Honest Significant Difference (HSD) test. The introduction of M+50% of RP or Mycorrhizae sp. alone (M) through seed-coating or seed biopriming during the early stage of plant development enhanced tillering formation and the development of productive tillers of NSIC Rc 222 and NSIC Rc 480. Combining 50-100% P with Mycorrhizae, whether applied as the seed coat or bioprimed improved P concentration compared to inoculating M alone. The application of Mycorrhizae with 50-100% P improved yield in terms of the number of panicles per hill, weight of grains, yield per hill, yield per hectare, and harvest index when applied as a seed coating resulting to two-to-four-fold increase. Further, the addition of 50% P with a recommended rate of M increased plant yield with comparable output with applying P alone. Lastly, combining Mycorrhizae sp. as seed treatment with 50% P incurred 38.11 to 44.92% increase in income of farmers. Further addition synthetic fertilizer combined with microbes limit the yield of rice under lahar-laden P-limited soil.
phosphorus-deficit, mycorrhizae, seed coating, seed biopriming, nutrient uptake, microbial growth