Water management and other agronomic practices for aerobic rice in eastern India.

Abstract

A field experiment on aerobic rice culture was initiated at the Deras farm, Mendhasal in Khurda district , Orissa during summer season ( december - april) of 2007 and 2008 with the objective of identifying the suitable variety and irrigation regime of aerobic rice culture. Under aerobic condition, three rice viz. lalat, surendra and kandagiri were directly sown in the main field without puddling during the 11 week of december. All the four varieties were also sown on the same day in nursery and transplanted 25 days after sowing. Irrigation treatment consisted of I- keeping soil moisture at 80- 90% of available soil moisture (ASM) throughout the crop season I (2) keeping soil moisture at 60- 70% of ASM during the vegetative and thereafter 80-90% and I(3) keeping the soil moisture at 60-70% of ASM throughout the crop season and I(4) conventional rice cultivation Growth and yield characters were significantly influenced by establishment methods , irrigation regime, and varieties. Initial plant growth characters like plant height, tiller number were higher under aerobic rice. However , as the season advanced, values of growth characters were higher under transplanted rice. Yield attributes viz. panicle numbers , grains per panicle were also higher under transplanted rice. Among irrigation regimes under aerobic culture , higher values of yield attributes were recorded in the treatment I(1). Under aerobic rice root mass density was maximum under Kandagiri , which was followed by the variety lalat. The highest yield( 4.88 t) was recorded in the variety surendra under transplanting method. In aerobic condition, the highest grain yield ( 3.98 t ha -1) and higher water use efficiency was recorded in the variety surendra , irrigated at 80-90% soil moisture content.