Author(s):

KG Anitha, N Jeyapandian and A Anderson Amalan Kumar

Abstract: Supplementation of potassium nutrient to paddy crop is highly essential under drought stress to support the crop for enhanced water uptake, water use efficiency and prevention of lodging. Farmers are spraying 1% KCl under such conditions since it has been recommended in 1990. Once the role of PPFM in enhancing drought tolerance by breaking the formation of ethylene was established, the farmers were advised to go for foliar spray of PPFM @ 200ml in 200 litres of water per acre of paddy since 2013. Even though this KCl and PPFM applications are benefiting the crop in different ways, both have to be foliar sprayed. It will reduce the labour cost and water usage for the farmers if these two are combined together and given as a single spray. Hence an attempt was made to study the survival of PPFM when it is mixed with 1% KCl or any other alternate K supplement in a sprayer tank. Invitro studies on growth of PPFM colonies were done by combining with 1% KCl solution and 1% KH₂ PO₄. After 24 hours of incubation, 4 x 10¹³ CFU/ ml was observed in PPFM alone whereas it was 1x 10¹⁰ and 3 x10¹¹ for PPFM+1% KCl solution and PPFM+1% KH₂ PO₄ solution respectively. When plated after 48 hours the colony count was 20 x 10¹⁴, 22 x 10¹³, 5 x 10¹³ CFU/ml in PPFM alone, PPFM+1% KCl, PPFM+1% KH₂ PO₄ in Glycerol peptone broth respectively. The observation at 48 hours showed that even though there was numerical variation in these 3 treatments but they were statistically on par. This indicated that it is safe to combine PPFM with 1% KCl while spraying for paddy under drought condition which could ease the job of farmers.

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