Reasonable Fertilization Improves the Conservation Tillage Benefit for the Yield of Winter Maize in Rice-based Cropping System of Central Inner Terai of Nepal

To investigate the effects of fertilization, tillage, and their interaction on maize yield, an experiment rice-maize was conducted 2018/19 2019/20 at Agriculture Forestry University (AFU), Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal. The in a split-plot with two establishment methods viz. (i) zero tillage followed after (fa) conventionally tilled dry direct seeded rice (ZT fa CT-DDSR) (ii) conventional puddled transplanted (CT Pu-TPR) four nutrient management practices, i.e. recommended dose (100% RDF; 180-90-60 N-P2O5-K2O kg ha-1), Residue retention crop @ 5 t ha-1 + 75% RDF (RR +75% RDF), (iii) Nutrient expert (NE) (150-50-90 (iv) Rice residue 3.5 brown/green manuring Sesbania (R+75% BM/GM) treatments were replicated thrice. data yield attributes recorded analyzed by R studio. Both practices did not influence (p>0.05) plant population, number cobs per plant, grains cob, thousand-grain weight, sterility. barrenness percentage significantly affected but lower under retained treatments. Application NE dose, sterility (p<0.05) reduced ZT CT-DDSR. average grain straw harvest index (HI) 6153 ha-1, 4547 53.81% respectively. years statistically par for both whereas application RR+75% RDF, R+75% BM/GM resulted higher than obtained 100% applied plots. Maize planting CT-DDSR equally productive use recommendation or residues 25% reduction had advantage over present RDF.