Acta Scientifica Malaysia (ASM)

Prilled urea is mostly used as a nitrogen source having low efficiency (~35%) causing serious environmental concerns like eutrophication, greenhouse gas emissions and soil pollution and economic harm due to high production cost. Considering these issues, a study was carried out to investigate into the effect of integrated application liquid nano-urea fertilizer with conventional prilled urea on the productivity and profitability of monsoon rice. The experiment was a single factor comprising 13 different combinations of prilled urea and liquid nano-urea fertilizer treatments arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The maximum number of total tillers hill-1 (20.03), effective tillers hill-1 (16.50) and grains panicle-1 (116.33) were observed from the application of recommended prilled urea + 0.5 % nano-urea combination. The highest grain yield (4.28 t ha-1) and straw yield (5.20 t ha-1) were found from the application of 75 % recommended prilled urea + 0.5 % nano-urea combination which provided maximum net return (62,959 BDT ha-1) and gross return (1,91,400 BDT ha-1). In contrast, the minimum gross return (1,39,180 BDT ha-1) was demonstrated from applying 50 % recommended prilled urea + 0.2 % nano-urea combination. Based on the findings, it may be concluded that applying 0.2–0.5% nano-urea allows a 25% reduction in prilled urea without yield reduction. However, using only 50% prilled urea with nano-urea reduces yield. The most cost-effective option was 75% prilled urea with 0.5% nano-urea which will make this combination a promising strategy for sustainable rice production