Author:
Aashish Gyawali, Santosh Sharma Chapagain, Shashwat Kharel

Doi: 10.26480/fabm.02.2025.86.92

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

The experiment was conducted in April to July 2025 at Rampur Campus, Khairahani, Chitwan, Nepal to evaluate the effects of Azolla incorporation at different growth stages at different urea levels on rice (Chaite-5) growth and yield. The experiment consisted of seven treatments with three replications under Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Treatments were the integration of Azolla incorporation 20 and 40 DAT with 0%, 50%, and 75% of the applied dose of urea, in addition to a 100% urea control. Plant height, number of leaves, number of tillers, LAI, number of panicles, test weight, grain yield, straw yield, and sterility percentage were measured. Results showed that treatment T6 (Azolla at 40 DAT + 75% urea) came closest to treatment T1 (100% urea) in almost all the growth and yield traits. T6 gave the highest straw yield (16.18 t/ha) and lowest sterility (12.52%), whereas T1 contained the highest grain yield (6.69 t/ha). The poorest performance came from ureafree treatments, indicating that Azolla by itself is ineffective under field conditions. While integrating Azolla at the right stage of growth with minimized urea significantly improved growth and production, in this research, full urea application can be substituted by integrating Azolla at 40 DAT with 75% urea as a more sustainable approach towards enhanced nitrogen use efficiency and decreased dependence on chemical fertilizer. This practice supports sustainable rice cultivation and can be recommended for rice-growing areas like Chitwan to increase production in a sustainable way under pressure.