© 2013 PP House Influence of Rice Straw and Water Hyacinth Incorporaion on the Performance of Boro Rice M. A. Al-Mamun, P. K. Biswas, M. F. Karim, M. Hasanuzzaman * and A. Rahman Department of Agronomy, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka (1207), Bangladesh Abstract Article History Correspondence to Keywords Manuscript No. 401 Received in 26 th May, 2013 Received in revised form 2 nd June, 2013 Accepted in inal form 7 th June, 2013 The experiment was conducted at the Agronomy ield, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka from November, 2009 to May, 2010 to ind out the effect of rice straw and water hyacinth incorporation into the soil on the performance of boro rice. The treatments of the experiment consisted of two rice varieties viz., BRRI dhan29 and BRRI hybrid dhan2, two biomass materials viz., rice straw and water hyacinth; and three levels of biomass concentration viz., control (no biomass), 0.5 kg biomass m -2 and 1.0 kg biomass m -2 . The experiment was laid out in a double split plot design with three replications having varieties in the main plot, biomass materials in the sub plot and concentrations in the sub sub-plot. Signiicantly higher grain yield of rice (6.90 t ha -1 ) and harvest index (49.27) was obtained from BRRI hybrid dhan2 as compared to BRRI dhan29 (6.08 t ha -1 and 41.27) , however, signiicantly higher straw yield (8.64 t ha -1 ) was registered with the latter variety. * E-mail: sauhasan@gmail.com Rice straw, water hyacinth, hybrid rice 000 000 GALLEY PROOF International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management 2013, 4(2):000-000 1. Introduction Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food of over half of the world’s population. It is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production and predominant dietary energy source for 17 countries in Asia. The total acreage of rice was nearly 160 million hectares worldwide which produced more than 700 million tons grains every year (IRRI, 2013). The total produc- tion of rice in Bangladesh was 34.35 million metric tons from 11.35 million hectares of land in the iscal year 2010-2011 (BBS, 2011). But there was a deicit of 1.27 million metric tons of rice in that year. In Bangladesh rice is grown under diverse ecosystems, irrigated, rainfed and deep water condition in three distinct seasons namely aus, aman and boro where boro covers the lion share of about 4.70 million hectare of land producing 18.65 million metric tons of rice (BBS, 2010). Bangladesh is an agriculture based country where about 84% of the total population lives in rural areas. Agriculture shares about 19.95% GDP (gross domestic product) of the country and 62% people directly involved with agriculture (BBS, 20011). The cultivation cost of different crops is gradually increasing due to the high prices of inputs. The soil health of Bangladesh is tremendously deteriorated due to intensive agriculture resulting in lower organic matter status of the soil thus lower yield (Bhuiyan, 1987). Hence, emphasis has to be given low cost, high proit and environmentally safety agriculture. Management plays an important role on crop pro- duction. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is free-floating perennial aquatic plant native to tropical and sub-tropical South America. With broad, thick, glossy, ovate leaves they grow in our country as an aquatic weed. They have long, spongy and bulbous stalks. Water hyacinth contains only 4.50% dry matter of which 75.80% organic matter, 1.5% nitrogen and 24.20% ash those enhances plant growth (Gohl, 1981). In Bangladesh most of the produced water hyacinth remains unused. Fresh water hyacinth can be used to increase the organic status in the soil. Another raw material is rice straw which can be used to improve the soil fertility which otherwise is burnt by the farmers. Considering that water hyacinth and rice straw is abundant residue in Bangladesh with little use, it was consid- ered interesting to include it in the present study. Considering the above context the experiment was designed to compare the effectiveness, suitability and optimum concentration of rice straw and water hyacinth in improving soil health and performance of boro rice. 2. Materials and Methods The ield experiment was conducted at the Agronomy ield, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), under the agro- ecological zone of Modhupur Tract, AEZ-28, during boro season (November to May) 2009-2010 with a view to inding out the effect of rice straw and water hyacinth biomass on the