Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 8:20 AM
346-2

No Tillage and Direct Seeding: Water- and Labor-Efficient Alternatives to the Conventional Rice-Wheat System.

Jagdish Ladha1, Mahesh Gathala1, Himanshu Pathak1, Yashpal Singh Saharawat1, and M.P. Yadav2. (1) International Rice Research Institute, IRRI-India Office 1st Fl. CG Block, NASC Complex DPS Marg, New Dehli, 110012, India, (2) Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut, India

Conventional tillage and crop establishment practices in the rice-wheat system require a large amount of water and labor, which are becoming scarce and costly day by day. A field experiment was conducted in the Indo-Gangetic Plains for five years (2002-2007) to evaluate various tillage and crop establishment practices for their efficiency in water and labor use and economic profitability. Yield of rice was higher with conventional puddled transplanting (7.2-8.8 Mg ha-1) than no-tillage direct seeding on flat land (6.5-7.3 Mg ha-1) and raised beds (3.1-6.3 Mg ha-1). Gap between the yields with puddled transplanting and no-tillage direct seeding widened to 2.0-2.8 Mg ha-1 after 2 yrs. Yields of wheat on flat land and raised bed following either puddling or no-tillage in rice were similar (4.0-5.3 Mg ha-1) and maintained over the yrs. In rice 2-25% less irrigation water was applied with no-tillage. With no-tillage and direct seeding of rice, there were less human labor (46-47 man d ha-1) and machine labor (7-8 tractor hr ha-1) use than with puddled transplanting (61-67 man d ha-1 and 14-15 hr ha-1, respectively). Conventionally-tilled wheat had a machine labor use of 12 tractor hr ha-1, whereas in other treatments it was 6 tractor hr ha-1. Rice on raised beds had the lowest economic return, which decreased over the yrs. Wheat in both raised beds and no-tillage, however, had higher returns than the conventional system because lower machine use. The study suggested that wheat can be successfully grown with no-tillage and on beds but the direct-seeding and bed planting technologies for rice need improvement on a site- and season-specific basis.