Nutrient manager program for rice: A quick guide for fertilizer recommendations

A field trial on Nutrient Manager Program For Rice was conducted at New Ilocos, Magsaysay, Davao del Sur, Philippines to determine its influence on the agronomic characteristics of PSBRc72H rice variety, severity of bacterial blight disease, its yield and yield components, and the total added benefit (TAB). The study was carried out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) replicated three times. The treatments were as follows: T1 – NPK application based on soil test results, T2 – NPK application based on NM given fertilizer guide (all synthetic fertilizer), T3 – NPK application based on NM given fertilizer guide (synthetic + Organic fertilizer) and T4 –Farmers’ practice. Results showed no significant difference on the yield. This was attributed to no significant difference on the number of productive tillers/hill and number of filled grains/ panicle; parameters that highly influenced yield. The severity (%) of bacterial blight disease was enhanced by the greater amount of Nitrogen applied at booting stage. A total added benefit of PhP5, 681.40 was obtained using Nutrient Manager Fertilizer guide applied 100% synthetic fertilizer and only PhP3, 306.00 was obtained to plots applied in combination with organic fertilizer. Based on the results, it is recommended that the questionnaire must be filled up honestly by the rice farmer for the program solely depends on it in generating fertilizer application guide. Besides, field monitoring of the crop stand before the second or third fertilizer application must be done to decide whether increase or decrease the specified amount of fertilizer recommended by the NM fertilizer program, and no two scheduled fertilizer application be applied once for it enhances disease severity.