Sustainable Weed Management for Unpuddled Transplanted Rice

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com non-rice crops in a rotation such as wheat. Therefore, puddling for rice transplanting should be avoided as it has adverse effects on the succeeding upland crops. Unpuddled transplanting is an alternative method for rice establishment which can be adopted to overcome these problems and also to reduce cost of rice production. For this system, the land is made ready for transplanting by one pass strip tillage (or without tillage) followed by inundation of the land for 48 hours to make the land sufficiently soft for transplanting. Several reports reveal that rice cultivated in unpuddled transplanted system gives similar or higher yield compared with puddled transplanted crop. The seedlings transplanted in unpuddled soil can avoid adverse effect of short-term intense drought where rice seedlings in the puddled field, generally dies due to soil shrinkage and creation of cracks. Despite these advantages, the adoption of unpuddle transplanting system is highly constrained as the crop faces severe weed infestation. Rice yield may drastically be declined in unpuddled system if weed management is not done properly. On the other hand, the weed problem is not a serious issue in case of puddled transplanted crop as puddling of soil destroys weeds just before transplanting.