Archives

Organic farming has played an important role in recent years in boosting the income of farmers without affecting health and environment. Scientific evidences around the world had showed the better quality of grain under organic farming. Hence, the field investigation was carried out at wetlands farm of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during rabi 2014 to find out the influence of non-chemical weed management practices on growth, yield and biochemical parameters of organic rice. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replication and ten treatments. Microbial counts were recorded in the soil samples taken at 120 DAT. The study revealed that the higher growth, yield parameter, microbial population (viz., bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes) and biochemical parameters (Amylose content and Aroma) recorded under mulching using biodegradable polyethelene sheets and the lowest was observed in unweeded check. But taking into consideration of economics, among different non-chemical weed management practices benefit cost ratio was found to be highest in Hand weeding on 15 DAT followed by azolla inoculation.
Key words: Organic rice, Yield parameters, Amylose content, Aroma.