In view of the high cost of fertilizers and the importance of mineral nutrition on the technology level used by rice producers for yields in southern Brazil, the use of evaluation techniques of the nutritional status, such as foliar diagnosis has become essential. Among the methods for nutritional plant diagnosis, the Diagnosis and Recommendation Integrated System (DRIS) stands out, which is based on the concept of nutrient balance. The objective of this study was to establish a DRIS reference norm and nutritional standards for flooded rice. Results of foliar analysis and grain yield of 356 farms in different rice-producing regions in the 2005/2006 growing season were used. The leaf samples were collected at the flowering stage. High-yielding populations were selected based on the best correlation between the Index of Nutritional Balance (IBN) and the maximum yield, which reached a more than 9.000 kg ha-1. The calculation of the DRIS functions and indexes was based on the original method of Beaufils. Results indicated that: the nutrient concentration was positively related with the respective DRIS indexes; the IBN correlated negatively with yield; the determination of the DRIS equilibrium point allowed the establishment of nutritional standards for flooded rice; and the DRIS method, using specific norms for the Rio Grande do Sul State, was efficient for a nutritional diagnosis of flooded rice.
foliar diagnosis; nutritional balance index; nutritional standards
