Appraisal of Bio-Fertilizers in Rice

Organic farming is a self-sustaining eco-friendly system and besides supplying nutrients to the current crop, it often leaves a substantial residual effect on succeeding crops and helps to maintain resilience of soil nutrient balance, which is the basic attribute for sustainability. Yield of crops and soil quality are principally regulated by nutrient management at field level. There is an urgent need to study the role of bio-fertilizers in partially compensating the higher demand of fertilizers for growing rice varieties to maximize food production. In this context, with the objective to study the effect of different bio-fertilizers on growth and yield of rice, fertility build-up of soil along with nutritional uptake by the crop, nutrient efficiencies and economics of rice cultivation, an experiment was carried out during kharif season of 2016 in experimental farm of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal, India. I hope that this book can impart basic and innovative knowledge about organic agriculture with the help of biological fertilizers.