Sustaining productivity in boro (winter) season using minimal water through dry direct seeding of rice M. M. RAHMAN AND M. M. MASOOD

The sustainability of rice productivity in Bangladesh is likely to face major threat due to water shortage during boro (winter season). The conventional transplanted boro rice requires huge amount of irrigation water due to wastage of various means. It is an imperative task that water saving production technology is needed to replace the conventional system for sustaining boro rice production in the country ensuring food security. Keeping with this in view, a field experiment was conducted during two consecutive boro seasons of 2009-10 and 2010-11 on two rice varieties viz. V BRRI dhan28 and V BRRI dhan29 in farmers 1 2 field under three different systems viz. T puddle transplanted conventional irrigated, T puddle transplanted alternate wetting 1 2 and drying irrigated and T dry direct seeded systems at four locations of Bangladesh viz. Sundarban in Sadar of Dinajpur, 3 Norkona in Modhupur of Tangail, Narandia in Purbadhala of Netrokona and Bijoynagar in Godagari of Rajshahi, respectively. At each location, the experiment used a split-plot design with four disperse location allocating systems in the main plot and variety as sub-plot.The result revealed that the rice yield and economic return for both the varieties were highest in dry direct seeded system. The number of irrigation required for puddle transplanted conventional system were 14-19, while those for dry direct seeded field and puddle transplanted alternate wetting and drying fields were 6-9 and 11-15, respectively. The puddle transplanted alternate wetting and drying field and dry direct seeded fields used about 24% and 58% less irrigation water than the puddle transplanted conventional irrigated field. The study concluded that dry direct seeding could be practiced for boro rice cultivation to get higher yield using 58% less irrigation water.