The Effect of Biofertilizer of Azola, Phosphate and Nitrogen Fertilizers on Yield and Grain Quality of Rice

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out during the summer season of 2019 in one of the fields of AlTahiniah village Al-Mahanawiya district which is 36 km away from the Diwaniyah governorate center, to study the effect of Azola, phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers and the interactions between them on yield components, yield and grains quality of the rice grown in water logging conditions. The experiment was arrangement as factorial experiment according to Randomized Complete Blocks Design (RCBD) at three replications. The experiment included three factors, the first factor included the application of Azolla (Azolla pinnata L.) at 20 tons ha -1 and the control treatment (without application of Azolla), while the second factor included application three levels of phosphate fertilizer (21, 42 and 84 kg P ha -1 ) as well as the control treatment (without application of phosphate fertilizer), whereas the third factor included application two levels of nitrogen fertilizer (92 and 184 kg N ha -1 ) as well as the control treatment (without application of nitrogen fertilizer). The results showed that the application of Azolla pinnata L. achieving the highest results of the number of panicles per plants, number of grains per panicle and grain yield by 30.30, 6.37 and 7.80% respectively compared with control treatment that achieved the lowest results for all traits respectively. Also, the application of phosphate fertilizer at half recommended amount (42 kg P ha -1 ) was significantly superior and gave the highest results of the number of panicles per plant, number of grains per panicle and grain yield with a significant increase of 35.29, 4.76 and 7.55 respectively compared with control treatment. In addition to, the application of nitrogen fertilizer at the recommended amount (184 kg N ha -1 ) had the highest results of the number of panicles per plant and number of grains per panicles by 48.29 and 5.75% respectively, without significant difference on the application of nitrogen fertilizer at half the recommended amount (92 kg N ha -1 ) which had the highest mean of the grain yield by 4.94% compared with control treatment which had the lowest results for all traits respectively. The interaction between the application of Azola and the levels of phosphate fertilizer, application of Azola and the levels of nitrogen fertilizer, application of phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers as well as the tri-interaction between three factors had significant effect in all the studied traits except the weight of 1000 grains. We can concluded that the application of Azolla pinnata L. reduced the amounts of phosphate and nitrogen fertilizer by 50% of Recommended amounts and led to improvement the yield and yield components of rice in addition to grain rice quality.