Integrated nutrient management improves the nutritional quality and yield of black rice

Integrated nutrient management combining inorganic and organic fertilizers is a promising approach to sustain crop production and soil health. As a premium rice type, integrated nutrients to cultivate black rice are rarely studied in Bangladesh. So, this research was conducted to identify the best combination of inorganic fertilizer (IF) and cow dung (CD) for maximizing the yield and nutritional quality of black rice. The experiment was conducted in the field laboratory of the Department of Agronomy, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh following a Completely Randomized Design with four replications. Six treatments with single and combining IF and CD viz., 0% IF + 0% CD (IF0CD0), 100% IF + 0% CD (IF100CD0), 75% IF + 25% CD (IF75CD25), 50% IF + 50% CD (IF50CD50), 25% IF + 75% CD (IF25CD75), and 0% IF + 100% CD (IF0CD100) were applied. A significant variation was found among different treatments concerning plant growth, yield contributing characters, yield, and nutritional composition of black rice. Overall, a better performance was obtained from the application of 75% IF and 25% CD (IF75CD25) concerning most of the studied parameters with few deviations. The highest number of tillers hill-1(8.33), effective tillers hill-1 (7.33), panicle length (25.97 cm), spikelet’s panicle-1 (22.87), grains panicle-1 (129.7), grain yield (4 t ha-1), protein (9.71%), and potassium (0.58%) were found at the treatment IF75CD25. The overall results suggest that 25% cow dung combined with 75% recommended inorganic fertilizers can be applied to achieve maximum yield and nutritional quality of black rice in non-calcareous soil.