Rice Ratoon Crop: A Sustainable Rice Production System for Tropical Hill Agriculture

Increasing and sustainable production of rice in tropical hill area is facing various problems where rice ratooning can overcome the limitations. In this study; 22 rice entries were transplanted into experimental tank placed in the hill slope following Completely Randomized Design with five replications to asses’ agronomic performance of main crop and ratoon crop where Entry 13 demonstrated highest grain yield per plant (42.06 ± 1.2 gm) as main crop, as well as ratoon crop (3.37 ± 0.28 gm); Entry 19 produced lowest grain yield per plant (5.01 ± 0.31 gm) as main crop and Entry 31 as ratoon crop (0.47 ± 0.03 gm). The grain yield per plant of both the main and ratoon crop demonstrated significant (** at 5% level and *** at 1% level) positive correlation with number of tiller per plant (0.64 ** and 0.52); number of fertile tiller per plant (0.66 ** and 0.63 **); grain per panicle (0.72 ** and 0.53); fertile grain per panicle (0.80 *** and 0.63) and thousand-grain weight (0.66 ** and 0.54). The Duncan Multiple Range test and Analysis of Variance also confirmed the different grouping and significant differences of productivity and agronomic performances of the entries. The information of this investigation will helps the rice breeder as well as marginal rice farmers to consider rice ratooning as an important practice for sustainable rice production in tropical agriculture system for maximum gains.