EFFECT OF INTEGRATED APPROACH OF PLANT NUTRIENTS ON YIELD AND YIELD ATTRIBUTES OF DIFFERENT CROPS IN WHEAT-SESAME-T . AMAN CROPPING PATTERN

The experiment was carried out at FSRD site, Pushpopara, Pabna, during November, 2010 to December, 2011 to observe the comparative performance of integrated plant nutrients management (IPNS) system through the use of organic (cowdung, cowdung slurry) manure and inorganic fertilizer on wheat, sesame and T. Aman crops under wheat-sesame-T. Aman cropping pattern. The experiment was consisted with four treatments viz. T1: Soil test based inorganic fertilizer dose for high yield goal, T2: Cowdung @ 5 t ha-1 + IPNS basis inorganic fertilizer dose for high yield goal, T3: Cowdung slurry @ 5 t ha-1 + IPNS basis inorganic fertilizer dose for high yield goal and T4: Fertilizer dose usually practiced by the farmers. In case of wheat, the highest grain yield (3.80 t ha-1) was obtained from bio-slurry treated plot that means T3 treatment followed by T2 and the lowest (3.31 t ha-1) from T4. Higher seed yield (1.31 t ha-1) of sesame was obtained from T3 that was statistically identical to T2 and T1 and the lower (1.01 t ha-1) from T4. For T. Aman rice, the highest grain yield (4.89 t ha-1) was obtained from T3 which was statistically indistinguishable from T1 where as the lowest grain yield (4.1 t ha-1) was recorded from T4. Considering the whole pattern, it is observed that the highest gross return (271100 Tk ha-1) was obtained from T3 followed by T2 and the lowest (225650 Tk ha-1) from T1 treatment. Total variable cost was recorded as the highest (100368 Tk ha-1) in T2 followed by T3 and the lowest (86775 Tk ha-1) in T4 treatment. The highest marginal value of product (45450 Tk ha-1) was recorded in T3 followed by T2 where as the minimum (28710 Tk ha-1) was found in T1 over the T4 treatment. Marginal variable cost was observed as the highest (13593 Tk ha-1) in T2 treatment followed by T3 and the minimum (8899 Tk ha-1) was recorded in T1 treatment. The highest MBCR (4.15) was recorded from T3 followed by T2 and the minimum (2.31) from T2 treatment.


Introduction
The basic concept of Integrated Plant Nutrition System (IPNS) is the management of all available plant nutrient sources, organic and inorganic, to provide optimum and sustainable crop production conditions within the prevailing farming system.Therefore, in IPNS an appropriate combination of mineral fertilizers, organic manures, crop residues, compost, Nfixing crops and bio fertilizer is used according to the local ecological conditions, land use systems and the individual farmer's social and economic conditions.
The main aim of integrated plant nutrition system is to increase and sustain soil fertility to provide a sound basis for flexible food production systems that, within the constraints of soil and climate, can grow a wide range of crops to meet changing needs (FAO, 2001).Therefore, it is necessary to use inorganic and organic fertilizers in an integrated way so as to obtain economically profitable crop yield, without incurring loss to soil fertility (Haque et al., 2001).IPNS can produce comparable or higher crop yield compared to sole fertilizer use (BARC, 2005).
Soil fertility deterioration is a major constraint for higher crop production in Bangladesh.The increasing land use intensity without adequate and balanced use of chemical fertilizers and with little or no use of organic manure have caused severe fertility deterioration of our soils resulting in stagnating or even declining of crop productivity.The farmers of this country use on an average, 215 kg nutrients/ha annually (149 kg N + 37 kg P2O5 + 22 kg K2O + 7 kg S, Zn, B and others), while the crop removal is about 280-350 kg ha -1 (Islam, 2008).Since fertile soil is the fundamental resource for higher crop production, its maintenance is a prerequisite for long-term sustainable crop productivity.Soil organic matter is a key factor for sustainable soil fertility and crop productivity.Organic matter undergoes mineralization with the release of substantial quantities of N, P, and S and smaller amount of micronutrients.In Bangladesh, most of the cultivated soils have less than 1.5% organic matter and some soils even less than 1%, while a good agricultural soil should contain at least 2.5% organic matter (BARC, 2005).Moreover, this important component of soils is declining with time due to intensive cropping and use of higher doses of nitrogenous fertilizers with little or no addition of organic manure.
In Bangladesh, major food crops remove about 2.98 million tons of nutrients annually against a total addition of 0.72 million ton (Rahman et al., 2008).According to an appraisal report of Bangladesh soil resources, soils of about 6.10 m ha contain very low (less than 1%) organic matter, 2.15 m ha contain low (1-2%) organic matter and the remaining 0.90 ha contain more than 2 % organic matter.Ali (1997) reported that during the years 1967-1995, the highest depletion of organic matter occurred in soils of Meghna River Floodplain (35%) followed by Madhupur Tract (29%), Brahmaputra Floodplain (21%), Old Himalayan Piedmont Plains (18%) and Gangetic Floodplain (15%).
The average organic matter content of top soils has decline by 20-46% over past 20 years due to intensive cropping without inclusion of legume crops, imbalance use of fertilizer, use of modern varieties and scanty use of organic manure.It is agreed that decrease in soil fertility is a major constraint for higher crop production in Bangladesh.The beneficial effect of organic manure in crops production has been demonstrated by many workers (Joshi et al., 1994;Batsai et al., 1979;Singh et al., 1970;Subhan, 1991).
A suitable combination of organic and inorganic source of nutrients is necessary for sustainable agriculture that can ensure food production with high quality (Reganold et al., 1990).Nambiar (1991) viewed that integrated use of organic manure and chemical fertilizers would be quite promising not only in providing greater stability in production, but also in maintaining better soil fertility.The long-term research of BRRI revealed that the application of cowdung 5 t/ha/yr improved rice productivity as well as prevented the soil resources from degradation (Bhuiyan, 1991).Thus, it is necessary to use fertilizer and manure in an integrated way in order to obtain sustainable crop yield without affecting soil fertility.Based on the soil fertility problem as discussed above, the present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of combined use of chemical fertilizers and organic manures in wheat-sesame-T.Aman rice cropping pattern regarding yield and economic return.

Material and Methods
The experiment was carried out at FSRD site, Pushpopara, Pabna, during November, 2010 to December, 2011 to observe the comparative performance of integrated plant nutrients management (IPNS) system through the use of organic (cowdung, cowdung slurry) and inorganic fertilizer on wheat, sesame and T. Aman crops under wheat-sesame-T.Aman cropping pattern.The trial was conducted in 6 different locations at the farmer's field.Before conducting the experiment, initial composite soil samples (0-15 cm depth) were collected from the experimental plots and were analyzed.Nutrient packages was calculated on the basis of soil test value according to the instructions outlined by BARC fertilizer recommendation guide 2005.The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with a unit plot size of 5m6m.Four fertilizer treatments viz.T1: Soil test based inorganic basis fertilizer dose for high yield goal, T2: Cowdung @ 5 t ha -1 + IPNS basis inorganic fertilizer dose for high yield goal, T3: Cowdung slurry @ 5 t ha -1 + IPNS basis inorganic fertilizer dose for high yield goal and T4: Farmers practice.Variety BARI Gom 24, BARI Til 4 and Swarna was selected for wheat, sesame and T. Aman respectively by the cooperator farmers and used in the trial.Wheat seeds were sown in the field on December 15-25, 2010 maintaining spacing of 20 cm  5 cm.Fifty percent urea and entire amount of TSP, MoP, Gypsum, Zinc sulphate , Boric acid and organic manure were applied as basal as per treatment specification.Rest 50% urea was applied at 18-21 days after sowing (DAS).The seeds of sesame were broadcasted @ 7 kg ha -1 on April 6, 2011.All fertilizers with full amount except urea were applied during final land preparation.Fifty percent urea was applied as basal and the rest amount was applied as top dress during first irrigation.In case of T. Aman rice, thirty day's old seedling was transplanted on 16 and 17

Ci Cs
August, 2011.Entire amount of all fertilizers including cowdung manure and cowdung slurry except urea were applied as basal.Urea was applied in two equal splits at 15 and 55 DAT as top dress.Intercultural operations viz.weeding, thinning, irrigation and spraying of pesticides were done as and when required in order to support normal plant growth and development.
The crops were harvested after full maturity.Wheat, sesame and T. Aman were harvested on March 12-17, July 7 and 25-29 November, 2011 respectively.
The recorded data were statistically analyzed following Gomez and Gomez (1984).All types of variable production cost are recorded to find out the marginal benefit cost ratio (MBCR).Economic analysis with respect to net return was carried out to evaluate the profitability of different treatments.

Yield and yield attributes of wheat
Significantly higher plant height (98.84 cm) was obtained from T3 that was statistically similar to T2 and lower from T4 treatment.The spike m -2 (333.55) and grain spike -1 (44.05) were observed as the highest from T3 followed by T2 and the lowest from T4 treatment.Significantly the highest1000 grain weight (42.61 g) was obtained from T3 and the lowest (3.31 g) from T4.The highest grain yield (3.80 t ha -1 ) was obtained from bio-slurry treated plot that means T3 treatment followed by T2 and the lowest (3.31 t ha -1 ) from T4 treatment.The highest straw yield (5.92 t ha -1 ) was also obtained from bio-slurry treated plot i.e. from T3 and the lowest (5.38 t ha - 1 ) from T4. Significant variation of grain yield indicated that nutrient management packages had significant influence on wheat production.It was observed that IPNS systems with organic manure (cowdung, bio-slurry) based nutrient packages showed better performance over T1 and T4 packages as those dealt with chemical fertilizers only.This might be due to the positive effect of organic manure (bio-slurry, cowdung) on yield and yield contributing characters of wheat.The result of yield increment of wheat was supported by the findings of Bodruzzaman et al. (2002), Karki et al. (1996), Kologi et al. (1993), Maskey (1978).

Yield and yield attributes of sesame
Data presented in the Table 5 revealed that plant height, plant population, nos. of siliqua plant -1 and nos. of seeds siliqua -1 of sesame were statistically non significant but varied numerically among the treatments.The higher plant height (136.8 cm) was recorded from T3 followed by T2 and the lower (130.1 cm) from T4 treatment.Similar trend was found in case of plant populations.The maximum nos. of siliqua plant -1 (36.16) was obtained from T3 followed by T2 and the minimum (33.42) from T4 treatment.Numerically higher nos. of seeds siliqua -1 (47.00) was found in T3 followed by T2 and the lower (44.47)from T4 treatment.Higher seed yield (1.31 t ha -1 ) of sesame was obtained from T3 that was statistically identical to T2 and T1 and the lower (1.01 t ha -1 ) from T4.The cumulative positive effect of nos. of siliqua plant -1 , nos. of seeds siliqua -1 and weight of 1000 seeds might be contributed to higher seed yield in T3.Lower seed yield was attained from farmers practice treatment probably the poor performance of yield contributing characters.Maximum stover yield (3.53 t ha -1 ) was also recorded in T3 was statistically indistinguishable from T2 and T1 and the minimum (3.32 t ha -1 ) from T4.The availability of nutrients and balanced uptake of nutrient might be enhanced optimum plant growth and finally maximized grain yield in T3 treatment as compared to other treatments.Haruna and Abimiku, (2011) reported about higher yield of sesame from application of organic manure.

Yield and yield attributes of T. Aman rice
The yield and yield contributing characters were statistically significant except panicle length (Table 6).Yield attributes like filled grain panicle -1 , 1000 grain weight were found as the highest in T3 and the minimum in T4.The results revealed that the yield contributing characters exhibited better performance due to IPNS with CDS based fertilizer management.The highest grain yield (5.05 t ha -1 ) was obtained from T3 which was statistically indistinguishable from T2 where as the lowest grain yield (4.26 t ha -1 ) was recorded from T4 treatment.The maximum yield in T3 treatment might be due to the cumulative positive effect of yield contributing parameters.Probably integrated fertilizer management using both inorganic and organic sources improved the availability of nutrients and their balanced uptake facilitated optimum growth and development of the crop which ultimately increased grain yield.The poor performance of yield attributes might be attributed to lower grain yield in T4.The highest straw yield (7.90 t ha -1 ) was obtained from T3 followed by T2 and the lowest (6.6 t ha -1 ) from T4 treatment.Similar trend of yield increment in rice with the application of bioslurry was also found by Bodruzzaman et al. (2002), Kanthaswamy (1993), Tripathi (1993), Gupta (1991), Singh et al. (1995), Maskey (1978).

Fr
nutrient required for given soil test value Uf = Upper limit of the recommended fertilizer nutrient for the respective STVI class Ci = Units of class intervals used for fertilizer nutrient recommendation Cs = Units of class intervals used for STVI class St = Soil test value Ls = Lower limit of the soil test value within STVI class

Table 1 .
Soil test value (Nutrient status) of the initial soil of the experimental field at FSRD site,

Table 2 .
Analytical value of N, P and K nutrient from different manure (Cowdung and bioslurry)

Table 3 .
Calculated amount of different nutrients as per treatment specification applied for different crops under wheat -sesame -T.Aman cropping pattern (Soil test based)

Table 4 .
Yield and yield contributing characters of wheat at FSRD site pushpapara, Pabna Within column values followed by same letter(s) did not differ significantly by DMRT

Table 5 .
Yield and yield contributing characters of sesame at FSRD site, Pushpapara, Pabna Within column values followed by same letter(s) did not differ significantly by DMRT.

Table 6 .
Yield and yield contributing characters of T. aman rice at FSRD site, Pushpopara, Pabna Within column values followed by same letter(s) did not differ significantly by DMRT