Abstract
Bacterial leaf blight (BLB) is one of the most important diseases that limit overall rice productivity. To investigate the effects
of row spacing on incident of bacterial leaf blight (BLB) in rice, field experiments were conducted at Agronomic Research
Area, Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture Faisalabad during 2013 and 2014. Two rice cultivars i.e., Super
Basmati (V1) and Basmati-515 (V2) were sown at three different row spacings i.e., 15, 22.5 and 30 cm regarded as S1, S2, and
S3, respectively. Results depicted that the lowest disease incidence i.e., 4.00 and 4.09% was recorded for Basmati-515 sown at
30 and 22.5 cm apart rows, respectively. The maximum productive tillers m-2 was recorded in V1S2, whilst the panicle length,
kernels per panicle, and normal kernels per panicle were recorded in V1S3. The 1000 grain weight was found highest in V2S2.
The maximum paddy yield i.e., 3.99 t ha-1 was recorded in V1S2 which were statistically similar to V2S2, whereas the harvest
index was also found significantly higher in V2S2 than all other interactions. Among both rice cultivars, Basmati-515 was found
less prone to BLB as compare Super Basmati. Hence, wider row spacing significantly reduced bacterial leaf blight severity.
Thus, it can be concluded that BLB can be managed by growing early maturing short duration genotypes at wider row spacing.
