Study on the growth and yield response in modified System of Rice Intensification (SRI)

M. M. Patel

Krishi Vigyan Kendra (ICAR), Chaswad, Dist.:Bharuch, Gujarat

Introduction

Rice is the staple food for majority population in India. Global and domestic demand for rice is increasing with the ever growing population. Policy makers and rice research managers are looking for methods of increasing rice production with less land and less water at affordable price to consumers. System of rice intensification, known as SRI method has the potential of increasing the rice yield. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) begins with a philosophy that rice plants are to be respected and supported as living creatures that have great potential. This potential will only be realized if we provide plants with the best conditions for their growth. If we help plants to grow in new and better ways, they will repay our efforts several times over. For rice plants to be more productive, they need to have: More and fertile tillers per plant (panicles) and more grains per fertile tiller. The SRI has sometimes been considered too labor intensive for widespread adoption (Moser and Barrett, 2003), but this appears to be a time dependent assessment. A number of evaluations have shown that SRI can become labor saving once methods and skills have been mastered (Sinha and Talati, 2005). The as such adoption of SRI is difficult for farmers as age of seedling at the time of transplanting is only 8-12 days and only one seedling is required to transplant per hill. These things are very difficult for farmers to understand and adopt. Looking to this, an attempt has been to make to find out rational way of SRI adoption in rice crop.

Material and Method

An experiment was conducted during the Kharif season of the year 2010-11 at KVK- Chas wad farm in Bharuch district of Gujarat state. The plot size of an experiment was 5.0 m x 4.0 m. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with five replications and four treatments. The comprising T1: System of Rice Intensification (SRI), T2: local recommendation i.e. Spacing 20 cm x 15 cm, seedling age 25 -30 days, 5-10 seedlings per hill, flood irrigation, T3: combination method i.e. Spacing 20 x 20 cm, seedling age 15-18 days, 2-3 seedlings per hill and T4: farmers practices. The other package of practices was adopted to raise the crop as per the recommendations. The observation on growth parameter viz., plant height (cm), no. of tillers/hill, root length (cm), root weight (g), shoot weight (g), days to 50 % ear head emergence were recorded the time of 50 % ear head emergence. The yield and yield contributing observations were recorded at crop maturity stage.

Result and Discussion

Table 1: Growth observations at 50 % ear head emergence

Treatment / Plant height (cm) / No. of tillers/hill / Root length (cm) / Root weight (g) / Shoot weight (g) / Days to 50 % ear head emergence
T1 / 129.0 / 33.2 / 19.4 / 65.8 / 497.0 / 60
T2 / 128.0 / 28.8 / 18.4 / 50.2 / 372.8 / 63
T3 / 122.6 / 23.6 / 18.0 / 43.2 / 290.8 / 65
T4 / 120.8 / 21.0 / 17.6 / 34.2 / 273.2 / 68

The data presented in Table 1 indicated that plant height, no. of tillers/hill, root length (cm), root weight (g) and shoot weight (g) was recorded higher in SRI plot followed by local recommendation plot at 50 % ear head emergence stage. Further, it was observed that crop reach at 50% ear head emergence in SRI plot takes 60 days followed by 63 days in local recommendation. All the growth parameters were recorded minimum under farmer’s treatments during 50 % ear head emergence stage.

Table 2: Yield and yield contributing observations at crop maturity

Treatments / Plant height (cm) / No. of tillers/ hill / No. of effective tillers/hill / Panicle length (cm) / Filled grain percentage / Days to maturity / Straw
yield
(kg/plot) / Grain yield (kg/ha)
T1 / 137.8 / 34.0 / 28.6 / 22 / 80.0 / 91.8 / 22.2 / 3051
T2 / 135.2 / 29.6 / 23.8 / 20 / 69.2 / 101.2 / 20.6 / 2695
T3 / 127.0 / 24.4 / 18.6 / 20 / 68.0 / 93.2 / 18.4 / 2580
T4 / 127.2 / 22.0 / 16.4 / 18 / 71.4 / 104.4 / 16.4 / 2389

It can be seen from the Table 2 that plant height (137.8 cm), no. of tillers/hill (34.0), no. of effective tillers/hill (28.6), panicle length (22.0 cm) and filled grain percentage (80 %) were achieved higher under SRI plot followed by local recommendation plot at crop maturity stage. Similarly, minimum days required to reach the maturity (91.8 days) under SRI techniques than that of recorded under local recommendation plot (104.4 days). The similar line of results was also recorded for straw and grain yield of paddy.

Conclusion

SRI promotion is intended to upgrade the human resources involved in agriculture as well as the water management in particular is a subject within SRI on which much systematic research remains to be done and under a wide variety of soil conditions to determine variations and ranges of practices, rather than offer any one-size-fits-all conclusions. This experiment results showed that growth and grain yield found lower in modified SRI as compared to SRI as well as recommended treatment. The key to success with SRI is the early transplanting of seedlings. This usually means transplanting seedlings before they are 15 days old, and as early as 8 or 10 days when only the first small root and tiller, with two tiny leaves, have emerged from the rice seed. When you plant older seedlings 3, 4, 5 or 6 weeks old they have already lost much of their potential to produce a large number of tillers.

REFERENCES

Moser, C.M.; and Barrett, C.B. (2003). The disappointing adoption dynamics of a yield-increasing, low-external-input technology: The case of SRI in Madagascar. Agric. Syst. 76:1085-1100.

Sinha, S.K and Talati, J. (2005). Impact of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) on Rice Yields: Results of a New Sample Study in Purulia District, India. IWMI-Tata Water Policy Research Report 47. International Water Management Institute, India Program, Anand.