Application of Different Rates of N:P:K Fertilizer on the Growth and Yield Components of Upland Rice in Rice-Soybean Intercropping System

Abstract

Nigeria is one of the fastest developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and hence, there is an urgent need to invest in agriculture to boost food production to meet the citizen's nutritional need and for export. Due to increasing population, urbanization and industrialization in Nigeria especially in the South East with small land mass, intercropping is highly recommended. A two-year field experiment was carried in 2018 and 2019 cropping seasons to assess the effect of application of different rates of N:P:K fertilizer on the growth and yield components of upland rice in rice-soybean intercropping system. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The treatment includes rice–soybean with five levels of N:P:K 15 :15 :15 (0kg, 100kg, 200kg, 300kg, and 400kg) fertilizer rates as well as rice sole and soybean sole .The result showed that the Interaction of upland rice and soybean with N:P:K fertilizer significantly affected the plant height, number of leaves, leaf area index, number of panicles per plant and number of seeds per plant of rice. Based on the result of this investigation, it was observed that cropping system and increased fertilizer rates positively affected the growth and yield component of upland rice. It was noted that among the N:P:K fertilizer rate (400 kg) gave the highest growth and yield component of upland rice in rice/soybean intercropping system.