~ 600 ~ Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 2019; 8(3): 600-603 E-ISSN: 2278-4136 P-ISSN: 2349-8234 JPP 2019; 8(3): 600-603 Received: 10-03-2019 Accepted: 12-04-2019 Sandeep Singh M.Sc. Student College of Agriculture, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo Punjab, India Balwinder Singh Dhillon Assistant Professor (Agronomy) College of Agriculture, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo, Punjab, India Sham Singh Dhillon Professor (Plant Breeding) College of Agriculture, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo, Punjab, India Correspondence Balwinder Singh Dhillon Assistant Professor (Agronomy) College of Agriculture, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo, Punjab, India Response of rice ( Oryza sativa L.) varieties to different planting dates Sandeep Singh, Balwinder Singh Dhillon and Sham Singh Dhillon Abstract A field experiment entitled “Response of rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties to different planting dates” was conducted at Research Farm, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo during Kharif season 2017. The experiment comprised of different transplanting dates (27 th June, 11 th July, 26 th July) and three cultivars (PR 126, PR 124, PR 114) making three replications in split plot design with nine treatments. The soil of the experimental field was loamy sand, with neutral in reaction, low in organic carbon and available nitrogen, medium in available phosphorous and high in available potassium. Among the varieties (viz., PR 126, PR 124, PR 114), the variety PR 124 resulted in maximum growth parameters, yield attributes and grain yield (83.13 q/ha) and minimum (78.71 q/ha) from PR 126. The first date of planting (27 th June) gave maximum growth parameters, yield attributes and grain yield (89.97 q/ha) and minimum growth parameters, yield attributes and grain yield (70.06 q/ha) were recorded in third date of sowing (26 th July). Thus, variety PR 124 of rice grown on 27 th June was suitable to obtain the better grain yield. Keywords: Grain yield, growth, rice and sowing dates. Introduction Rice (Oryza sativa L.) belonging to the family Gramineae, is the principle cereal crop grown across the globe especially in Asia. Globally, production of rice is estimated at a new record of 110.2 million tonnes harvested from 43.2 million hectares and productivity was 25.5 q/ha. It was grown in area of 43.5 million hectares with production of 104.41 million tonnes and productivity was 24.0 q/ha in India (Anonymous 2018). The crop needs continuous standing of water for about 15 days, which comes huge losses of water through evaporation, during the hot summer of June. Canal water being limited, the underground water is being excessively used, rather over exploited. This has created serious problem of declining of underground water, the declining rate being 0.23 meter per annum (Gupta et al., 1995) [8] . Therefore, there is an immediate and urgent need to reduce the water consumption especially during the early establishment of the crop after transplanting. So there is a serious need to test the delaying of transplanting of the crop by at least 10-15 days late transplanting (from 15 th June to 25 th June), which is quite dry, hot and highly evaporating period. Second important consideration should be to identify the suitable genotypes suitable for late transplanting after the present recommended date (15 th June) for Punjab State. This will save huge quantity of precious natural resource the life line of diversity of organism, plant and animals. Material and Methods The experiment was carried out during kharif season 2017 at Research Farm, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo (Bathinda). Talwandi Sabo is located at 29 0 57’N latitude and 75 0 7’E longitude and altitude of 213 meters above the sea level. This tract is characterized by semi arid climate, where both winters and summers are extreme. Maximum temperature in summer (July) is 27 °C and minimum temperature in winter (November) falls below 10°C. The soil of the experimental field was loamy sand texture with pH 7.9, organic carbon 0.30, available N 234.25 kg ha -1 , available P 15.06 kg ha -1 and available K 217.56 kg ha -1 . Observations were taken at flowering and at harvesting stage. Three different cultivars was sown with the spacing of 15*15 cm. Relatively higher seed rate (20 kg ha -1 ) was applied with the fertilizer application of 105 kg N, 30 Kg P and 30 Kg K ha -1 . Split plot design was selected for experimentation having nine treatments with three replications. Varieties were kept as main plot (PR 126, PR 124 and PR 114) and transplanting dates were kept as sub plots (27 th June, 11 th July and 26 th July). The net plot size was 4 m × 3 m (12 m 2 ) and gross plot size was 4.5 m × 3.5 m (15.75 m 2 ).