Growth and productivity of different rice cultivars under dry direct seeding in red and laterite soil of West Bengal

A field experiment was conducted during the kharif season of 2019-20 at the Agricultural Farm, Palli Siksha Bhavana (Institute of Agriculture), Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, to evaluate different rice cultivars under dry direct seeding conditions. The rice cultivars included 11 varieties namely MTU 7029, Pratiksha, MTU 1010, Shatabdi, Khitish, IR 36, IR 64, GB1, Sahabhagi, Annada and Parijat and two hybrids such as 6444 Gold and AZ 6453. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Block Design, replicated thrice. The soil of the experimental field was sandy loam in texture, acidic in reaction (pH 6.15), low in available nitrogen (265 kg N ha^-1), medium in available phosphorus (19 kg P₂O₅ ha^-1), medium in available potassium content (140 kg K₂O ha^-1) and low in organic carbon (0.38%) content. In terms of the growth parameters, like plant height, tillers per m^-2, dry matter accumulation and leaf area index, rice hybrids 6444 Gold and AZ 6453 showed better performance but some HYVs like Pratiksha and MTU 7029 recorded closer values. However, it was rice hybrid 6444 Gold that recorded the highest grain yield (4.31 t ha^-1) being on a par with the grain yield (4.19 t ha^-1) of other rice hybrids tested (AZ 6453) and significantly higher than all the HYVs evaluated in the experiment. Medium duration variety GB1 recorded the highest grain yield (3.34 t ha^-1) among all the HYVs tested which was closely followed by the grain yield of Pratiksha (3.27 t ha^-1) which was a long duration variety. Among other HYVs evaluated, Annada performed better, among short-duration cultivars with the grain yield of 2.59 t ha^-1.