Transplanted (T.) aman rice is the only crop in major areas of southwestern coastal Bangladesh and most of the land remains fallow during winter. Wheat can be a potential crop to fit in the existing cropping pattern with the adjustment of sowing time. Hence, the field experiment was conducted to evaluate the suitability of wheat grown at different dates of sowing after harvest of T. aman rice in the SW Bangladesh. The experiment consisted of eight sowing dates (from 21 November to 9 January, at 7 days interval) as treatment and arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Emergence, growth, yield attributes and yield were substantially declined with the progress of sowing time. Among the sowing dates, the highest plant height, tillers hill-1, spike length, grain spike-1, 1000 grain weight, straw yield and harvest index were obtained from 21 November sowing followed by 28 November and 5 December sowing. 21 November sowing produced the highest grain yield (4.2 t ha-1) then declined by ~7-26% from 2nd to 4th sowing (28 Nov to 12 Dec) but ~41-68% from 5th to 8th sowing (19 Dec to 9 Jan). Nonetheless, the yield was declined with delayed sowing but considering the constraints of winter crop cultivation in SW coastal region of Bangladesh, farmers can be benefited from an extra crop with average yield rather than keeping the land fallow. From the findings of this study, we concluded that wheat could be well fitted in rice-based cropping system and earlier sowing is best however, based on the harvest of T. aman, sowing of wheat is suggested up to 12 December with an average yield (>3 t ha-1) in the coastal soils of SW Bangladesh.
Key words: Wheat
Sowing time
Emergence rate
Temperature
Yield
Coastal region
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