EFFECT OF NATURAL AMORPHOUS SILICA - MULTIMINERAL FERTILIZER FLO-RAL MICROSIL ON SOME MORPHOLOGICAL AND YIELD COMPONENTS IN RICE (ORYZA SATIVA L.)

The effect of natural multimineral fertilizer Floral microsil (FM) (50 % bio-available amorphous SiO2 + macro-nutrients and trace elements) was investigated on some morphological and productive properties in rice at the environ-mental conditions of Republic of Macedonia, on cultivar San Andrea. Two treatments were studied: control (standard fertilization) with 450 kg/ha complex mineral fertilizers NPK (16:16:16) as basic fertilizer + two splits with Urea 46 % N (200 + 100 kg/ha), and FM treatment: 20 kg/ha FM before sowing, seed treatment with 20 kg/ha FM + three splits of FM + Urea (30 + 100; 20 + 60 and 20 + 60 kg/ha respectively). The field trials were set up in Zade design during 2014 and 2015. Results were analyzed with ANOVA and LSD test.The FM treatment significantly affected plant and stem height (2014), producing shorter plant (103.02 cm) and stem (87.47 cm) compared to the control (111.81 cm and 95.91 cm). Significantly lower biological (20958.34 kg/ha) and straw yield (10769.67 kg/ha) were determined in the FM treatment compared to the control (24852.00 kg/ha and 15101.34 kg/ha). The FM treatment significantly increased the 1000 grains weight (39.97 g against 38.28 g control av-erage). The paddy and white rice yield (9839.99 kg/ha; 5856.75 kg/ha) in FM treatment were statistically on par with the control (9368.60 kg/ha and 5907.91 kg/ha), as well as the panicle length, number of productive and non-productive tillers per m2, the head rice yield (whole grains and broken grains) and the hectoliter weight.The application of FM significantly increased the nitrogen use efficiency estimated thru the partial factor produc-tivity (97.24 kg paddy rice/kg N and 57.88 kg white rice/kg N), as compared to the control average (44.61 kg paddy rice/kg N and 28.14 kg white rice/kg N). Therefore, paddy and white rice yield statistically on par with the standard fertilization were produced with a lower amount of applied nitrogen fertilizer. These findings are of ecological signifi-cance for the rice production in the Republic of Macedonia.