Standardisation of System of rice intensification (SRI) technique
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Date
2006
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Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, Vellayani
Abstract
An experiment was conducted at College of Agriculture, Vellayani to compare the performance of rice under SRI and normal system of cultivation and to standardize the seedling age, spacing and weed management for rice under SRI system of cultivation. The investigation was programmed as two experiments, a pot culture trial followed by a field study.
The pot culture study to standardize the seedling age under SRI, was laid out in CRD with six treatments and five replications. The treatments included transplanting single seedling of 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 days old. Transplanting 21 day old seedling @ three seedlings hill-1 formed the control.
The results of the study revealed that the number of productive tillers were the highest for 12 day old seedlings which contributed to greater yield and this was on par with 14 and 16 day old seedlings. All the treatments were significantly superior to control in grain and straw yield.
Based on pot culture study, 12 day old seedlings were selected for field experiment.
The field experiment was laid out in factorial RBD with two factors, in nine treatment combinations and a control in three replications. The factors included were three spacings, viz., 20 x 20 cm, 25 x 25 cm and 30 x 30 cm and three weed management practices, namely, hand weeding twice at 20 and 40 DAT, use of pre-emergent herbicide, butachlor @ 1.25 kg ai ha-1 followed by hand weeding, rotary weeding at 10 days interval starting from 10 DAT and a control (transplanting 21 day old seedlings at a spacing of 20 x 10 cm and hand weeded twice at 20 and 40 DAT).
Among the different spacings followed, closer spacing of 20 x 20 cm recorded higher growth characters and produced more number of productive tillers hill-1 and per unit area. The closer spacings registered higher grain yield than 30 x 30 cm spacing, though not significant. However, all the SRI treatments registered significantly higher values for growth characters and yield attributes thus resulting in a higher yield compared to control.
Among the weed management practices, the use of butachlor followed by hand weeding, recorded better growth attributes and productive tiller count hill-1 thus contributing to a significantly higher grain yield which was on par with hand weeding twice.
Though the control plot recorded a significantly lower value for weed parameters during the early stages of observation, at later stages the variation between control and treatments was found insignificant.
The nutrient uptake by the crop was the highest at 20 x 20 cm spacing whereas for weeds, 25 x 25 cm spacing recorded higher values. Among the weed management practices, hand weeding twice recorded significantly lower nutrient uptake by weeds. The control plot was superior to other treatment combinations and registered significantly lower nutrient uptake by weeds.
The closer spacing of 20 x 20 cm along with the use of herbicide followed by hand weeding resulted in the highest net income and benefit-cost ratio. The net income and benefit-cost ratio in SRI treatments were higher than the control.
Compared to the existing method of rice cultivation, SRI treatments showed their superiority in augmenting the grain yield and income.
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