Mstatc Software - For Windows 7 - Analysis Agriculture Data
Penny Bozic
In order to evaluate the performance of hybrid and open pollinated varieties of maize under various conservation agriculture based practices in terai, region of Nepal, a field experiment was conducted at the research farm of National Maize Research Program (NMRP), Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal from February, 2012 to June, 2012. Altogether 16 treatments consisting of four maize varieties namely; DMH-849, Rajkumar, Manakamana-3 and Rampur Composite, and two levels of tillage, (i.e., conventional and no tillage) and two levels of residues management (i.e. with or without residue) were tested in 3 replication under split-split plot design. The data was analyzed using MSTATC statistical package. The results revealed that higher number of ears/ha was found in Manakamana-3 (54013) followed by Rajkumar hybrid (53550). The number of grains per ear was higher for residue left plot (406.04). Rajkumar hybrid produced the highest grain and stover yields of 7182 and 9996 kg/ha followed by 6295.0 and 9825.62 kg/ha in Manakamana-3. Variation on leaf area index (LAI) was due to no tillage was found significant in 45 DAS. Where as, the effect of residues on LAI was found significant at 30, 45, 60 and 75 DAS. Genotypic effect on LAI was found significant only at 30 DAS, where Manakamana-3 had the highest LAI (0.066) followed by DMH849 (0.056) and Rampur Composite (0.055). The variation due to tillage, residue and variety was evident for plant height in all the time series. The effect of residue on dry matter at 45 DAS was highly significant, where higher amount of dry matter was recorded in residue removed plots than the residue left plots. However, the hybrids DMH-849 had more grain to stover ratio (0.75) followed by Rajkumar (0.74) as compare to Rampur Composite (0.69). The plot having residues took longer duration for silking compared to the plot having no residue. Among the genotypes, DMH-849 showed earlier in tasseling (76 days) and maturity (118 days) followed by Rampur Composite. Economic analysis depicted the highest net return in Rajkumar hybrid (Rs. 105617/ha) under no tilled with residue used condition followed by without residue condition (Rs. 92267/ha). Manakamana-3 produced the higher net return (Rs. 85349/ha) under no tillage with no residue used condition followed by conventional tillage with no residue (Rs.70766/ha). The high benefit cost ratio was found of 2.432 in plots having no tillage with residue followed by no tilled with no residue 2.382. Manakamana-3 had the highest benefit cost ratio of 2.351 in no residue plots followed by no tilled with no residue plots (2.072). Significant reduction of production cost due to conservation agriculture (CA) based practices over conventional agriculture was recorded. Therefore, the CA based crop management practices need to be further promoted in wider areas.
Maize (Zea mays L.) is the second most important staple food crop both in terms of area and production after rice in Nepal. It is grown in 9, 06,253 hectare of land with an average yield of 2280 kg/ha (ABPSD 2010/11). It occupies about 28.15% of the total cultivated agricultural land and shares about 23.28 % of the total cereal production in Nepal. It shares about 9.5 % to Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (ABPSD, 2009/2010). Maize is growing three distinct agro-climatic zones within Nepal, the terai and inner terai, the mid and the high-hills. In Nepal, it is the traditional crop cultivated as food, feed and fodder on slopping Bari land (rainfed upland) in the hills. In the terai, valleys and low-lying river basin areas (both Bari and Khet lands), maize is grown in the winter and spring seasons with partial irrigation (Poudyal et al., 2001). Overall, 99.44% maize area is covered by improved open pollinated varieties (OPVs) including hybrids and only 0.56% local maize in terai (MoAC, 2009).There is rapid increase in maize demand primarily to meet the increased demand for human consumption in the hills as a staple food and for livestock feeds in terai and inner terai areas. To meet the increased demand of poultry feed and year round consumption of the green maize in the cities the cultivation of maize is tremendously increasing day by day. Chitwan district itself is emerging as an industrial district especially for poultry industry. Out of 1,47,500 metric tons annual consumption of maize for poultry feed in Chitwan, only 41,796 metric tons produced in Chitwan and other are imported, mainly from India. Though there is a great potentiality of hybrid maize production especially in terai, valleys, and low river basin areas in different parts of Nepal. Some efforts have been made to develop and promote hybrid maize varieties in Nepal. Nevertheless, farmers from border areas of terai are introducing hybrid from abroad since long through Agro-vets and seed traders. The use of OPVs alone is not sufficient to fulfilling the food and feed demands because of its low productivity as compared to hybrids. Hybrid maize has great prospect to increase maize productivity in terai and mid hills under high input condition (Baniya et al., 2004). Koirala et al. (2002) suggested that there is urgent need to promote the most promising hybrid maize for commercial cultivation. In recent years, the hybrid maize has been scaled up in the valleys and low hills of different parts of the country.Commercialization of hybrid maize production in the high input supply areas is strongly demanded and that would provide greater contribution to national economic growth (Pathik, 2002).
Therefore, to cope the demand for feeds by various feed industries located in terai and inner terai and to insure the food security in the hills of Nepal, increased in maize production per unit area through the adoption of hybrid cultivars is only the viable option. And economic cultivation is another option due high labor and input cost. So it is necessary to access the performance of hybrid varieties in this climatic scenario with different conservation agriculture based technologies for higher yields. Farmers are using their own technology based on either from recommendation of agro-vet or from Seed Company. The yield level in the terai as well as mid hills can be pushed up through the intervention in the prevailing practice with some promising technologies.
Tillage practices contribute greatly to the labor cost in any crop production system resulting to lower economic returns (Labios et al., 1997).The minimum tillage could be a financially attractive technology for maize cultivation in rain fed lands of the mid hill and terai region. Since, minimum tillage is able to conserve a substantial amount of soil and nutrients; it has a long-term positive impact on the crop yield in comparison to the conventional tillage system. Therefore, the present study attempts to perform economic analysis of minimum tillage as a feasible resource conservation technology and implication for sustainable and resource-efficient agricultural production system in Nepal.
Maize seed was planted in each row with 2 seeds /hill and was maintained single plant per hill by thinning extra plants on 4th week of planting. The fertilizer dose was 120:60:40 kg NPK/ha along with 10 ton FYM/ha. Half dose of nitrogen, full dose of phosphorous (P2O5) and potash was applied at in planting time as a basal dressing along side the maize rows and remaining half dose of nitrogen was side dressed in two split doses half on knee high stage and half on tasseling stage. Two weeding cum inter cultures at 22 and 42 DAS and two irrigation at knee high stage and grain filling stage was given. Carbofuran @ 2-3 granules per plant against stem borer was applied at knee high stage.
Observations were taken on, weather data during the crop season and soil samples were taken by tube auger from 0 to15 cm depth of soil layer before sowing of the seeds from each replication and composite sample was made and analyzed for the initial fertility status of the soil to determine organic matter content, organic carbon content, total N content, available P2O5, K2O content and PH. Similar soil analysis were done after harvest the crop from each treatments. The phenological observations such as; emergence, plant population/m2, days of tasseling, days of silking, days of physiological maturity were recorded. Biometric observation such as; number of leaf, leaf area index (LAI), plant height and dry matter accumulation were also recorded. Yield attributing characters such as; number of harvested ears,ear length and circumference,number of kernels per ear, thousand grain weight (TGW) or test weight: shelling percentage, grain moisture content (%), grain yield, Stover yield, harvest index and grain: stover ratio were recorded. After harvesting of cobs from each plot was weight through electrical balance and tabulated as grain yield/ha by using standard formula was workout then data were analyzed. All maize stems were harvested from the base from the net harvested area and weighted immediately after harvesting. Husk is also included while taking Stover yield. Stover yield was calculated on hectare basis in Kg/ha. Finally, the economic analysis such as; cost of cultivation, gross return (total economic yield in kg X market price in Rs. per kg), net return (gross return-total cost) and B: C ratio (gross income /Total cost) was worked out. Statically all parameters were analyzed for the variance by using MSTATC statistical package.
The result showed that the effect of tillage, and their interaction effect on number of plants /ha at harvest were found non significant but only the effect of residue, and variety was found significant (Table 1). The number of plants/ha was found to be 52240 in residue removed followed by 50231 plants/ha in residue left field. The effect of variety DMH849 was observed significantly more no of plants 53395.06 /ha followed Manakamana-3 having 53240.74 plants/ha as compared to the two varieties Rajkumar and Rampur composite.
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