Effect of date of harvesting on yield and quality of different rice varieties

Abstract

Greater attention should be paid for increasing the yield per unit area by growing modern varieties of rice through improved cultivation practices. An experiment was conducted for investigating the effect of variety and date of harvesting on yield performance of modern rice varieties during Kharif, 2012 at Agricultural Research Station, Bapatla. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with three replications. Main treatments comprised of four rice varieties namely, BPT 5204, BPT 2270, BPT 2231, NLR 34449, NLR 28523 and MTU 1010 and sub treatments comprised of three time of harvesting viz., 25, 30 and 35 days after flowering. Plant growth, yield attributes, yield and quality of rice varieties were significantly influenced by different dates of harvesting. BPT 2270 was found significantly superior to all other varieties in respect of effective tillers, grains panicle-1, grain yield, straw yield and hulling per cent, milling per cent and head rice recovery. Among three harvesting times, the highest grain yield (6250 kg ha-1) and straw yield (7314 kg ha-1) were obtained when the crop was harvested at 30 days after flowering. The interaction effect of variety and date of harvesting was significant in respect of grain and straw yield. The highest grain yield (7771 kg ha-1) was observed in BPT 2270 when harvested at 30 days after flowering. Therefore, optimum date of harvesting for higher grain yield may be 30 days after flowering for avoiding immature stage as well as shattering loss.