Growth Performance of Paddy (Oryza sativa L.) under Influence of Foliar Application of Nano Silica in Calcareous Soil Condition

The pot experiment was conducted to study the “Growth performance of paddy (Oryza sativa L.) under influence of foliar application of nano silica in calcareous soil condition” during rabi season 2024 - 2025 at North farm, shade net, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore. The soil used for this study was silt clay loam in texture and calcareous in nature. The experiment was laid out in complete randomized design replicated thrice with eight treatments. The variety CO 51 with short duration of 105 – 110 days was used as a test variety in this study. The treatments were foliar application of nano silica @ 0.1% (T1), foliar application of nano silica @ 0.25% (T2), foliar application of nano silica @ 0.5% (T3), foliar application of nano silica @ 0.75% (T4), foliar application of nano silica @1% (T5), foliar application of potassium silicate @ 1% (T6), foliar application of potassium silicate @ 2% (T7) and control (T8).The findings suggested that paddy growth was significantly affected by the application of nano silica @ 0.5% (T3) in calcareous soil, outperforming potassium silicate, a conventional type of silica fertilizer and recorded the highest plant height (98.90 cm), number of tillers hill-1 (25) and dry matter production (34.33 g plant⁻¹). Although higher concentrations of nano silica 0.75% and 1.0% increased plant growth, the optimum 0.5% treatment performed better than both the higher concentrations, indicating the superiority effect of nano silica even under less concentration. Overall, under calcareous soil conditions, nano silica can be considered as a better paddy growth promoter than potassium silicate.