Reviewer di Journal of Agriculture and Crops untuk artikel berjudul "Influence of Yara fertilizer formulations on rice productivity in the Guinea savanna zone of Ghana"

Abstract

Low soil fertility has been a major constraint to the increased and sustainable rice production in the Guinea savanna zone of Ghana. Studies were conducted in four locations to evaluate the yield of rice under different Yara fertilization regimes. The fields were laid out in a randomized complete block design with four replications for each treatment. Data were collected on grain yield and seed mass, and subjected to analysis of variance, with treatment means separated at 5% level of significance. Significant improvement in rice paddy yield was realized in all study locations due to the fertilizer treatments. Grain yield improvement of up to 4,280 kg/ha was realized. The best two performing treatments in improving rice grain yield were UNIK-L+AMI-L and ACT-L+AMI-L and ACT-L+URE-L, in descending order. At most locations, rice grain yield among the CropLiftBio foliar treatments was statistically similar. Application of ACT+URE and UNIK+ACT without CropLiftBio foliar supplementation consistently demonstrated lower rice grain yields compared to the other fertilizer treatments in all study locations. Rice grain mass was however, not significantly impacted by the fertilizer treatments at any of the study locations. From the results of this study, Actyva fertilizers used as basal appeared to be unsuitable for rice production in the savanna ecology of Ghana as these generally provided lower grain yields. For maximum grain yield of rice in the ecology, Yara UNIK 15 (NPK 15:15:15) fertilizer was the most recommended. The basal application of UNIK 15 at 125 kg/ha and topdressing with Amidas at 125 kg/ha with CropLiftBio foliar supplementation will provide better yields for farmers than applying Actyva as topdress.