Potential of boron nutrition on agronomic performance and yield attributes of two high yielding rice varieties in Malaysia

Abstract A pot trial was carried out in the rain shelter number 5 located in the Faculty Plantation and Agrotechnology, Universiti Teknologi MARA Malacca Branch, Jasin Campus in between October 2023 to March 2024. The objective of the trial was to investigate the influence of different levels of boron nutrition on the growth and productivity traits of two selected high yielding rice varieties cultivated in Malaysia. The eight treatments (two high yielding rice varities and four level of boron nutrition treatments) were arranged as a factorial design in the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four times replication. The boron nutrition treatments applied were as T1 (Control), T2 (15kg B/ha), T3 (30kg B/ha) and T4 (45kg B/ha). This pot study demonstrates that supplementary of boron nutrition in rice plant likely resulted a positive response on yield-related traits such as panicle length, panicle number, grain/panicle, filled grain/panicle and yield. Overall, application of boron nutrition at 30kg B/ha (T3) was as the best boron treatment indicated in this pot study particularly on the panicle number, panicle length, grain/panicle and yield. Contrarywise, the rice plants grown without boron supplementation generally exhibited the lowest values of growth, productivity and its related traits respectively.