Kanwar, Ajar Singh2017-02-282017-02-282011http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810002858Water and Labour scarcity in Northwest India are main cause to find alternative management strategies that will increase water productivity and reduce labour requirement while maintaining land productivity. An experiment was conducted at farm of the Department of Soil Science, Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, during kharif 2010 to study soil water dynamics in direct dry-seeded rice with respect to different irrigation regimes and cultivars. The treatments comprised of cultivars (PR 114, PR 115 and PR 120) in main and irrigation levels (10, 20, 30 kPa and fixed 6 days interval) in sub-plots. The cultivar PR 120 produced highest crop biomass, root mass and length density, number of tillers, plant height and thousand grain weight. Root mass density increased as soil matric suction increased from 10 to 30 kPa irrigation treatments. The paddy yield was highest (5.7 t ha-1) in PR 120 followed by 5.2 t ha-1 in PR 115 and 4.9 t ha-1 in PR 114. The profile moisture storage was lowest in PR 120 whereas, it was comparable in other cultivars. The irrigation water productivity progressively increased with decrease irrigation water inputs and it was highest 1.03 g kg-1 with 30 kPa plots and lowest (0.54 g kg-1) in 10 kPa plots. The irrigation water productivity was highest in PR 115 (0.88 g kg-1) followed by (0.82 g kg-1) PR 120 and (0.58g kg-1) PR 114.The grain yield and yield attributes of rice decreased significantly at 30 kPa soil matric suction and 6 day interval from that in 10 and 20 kPa treatments. It is concluded that cultivar PR 120 and irrigation regime of 20 kPa at 15-20 cm soil depth was found to be suitable for direct dry-seeded rice.enThesis