By Dr. Md. Enamul Haque Coordinator, Nutrient Management for Diversified Cropping (NUMAN) and Conservation Agriculture Projects, Bangladesh nted and direct seeded rice in Conservation Agriculture

1. Welcome

2. NO-TILLCROPESTABLISHMENTOF
TRANSPLANTEDANDDIRECT SEEDEDRICE IN
CONSERVATIONAGRICULTURE
Dr. Md. Enamul Haque
Coordinator, Nutrient Management for Diversified Cropping
(NUMAN) and Conservation Agriculture Projects,
Bangladesh
SRI-LMB Regional Workshop 2018
1-2 November, 2018, Bangkok,Thailand

3. ConservationAgriculture(CA) as an
opportunity
• Save labour and time
• Save fuel
• Save water
• Lower costs of production
The CA practices are well-developed for
dry land and non-rice crops, but practicing
CA in rice-based systems remains
challenging.
Machineryandtechnologydevelopedfor
CAfor4-wheeltractors
• How can this technology be adapted for smallholders (1-2
ha farms; ~1000 m2 fields)

4. The use of VMP -
• reduce crop establishment cost from 30-59%;
• reduce diesel fuel use up to 80%;
• reduce labour use from16 to 54%;
• reduce irrigation water use up to 36%;
• reduced CO2 emission up to 82%;
• increase grain yield up to 40%;
• increase profit from up to 546%.
Benefits of
adopting CA on
farms:
A$700/ha/yr
For 1 ha farm
Innovations with small-scale planters:
Versatile Multi-crop Planter (VMP) suitable
for upland crops and direct seeded rice

5. How to incorporate rice in CA?
Option 1: Non-puddled transplanting rice
Option 2: Non-puddled Direct Seeded Rice (DSR)

6. Option 1:
Methodology of non-puddled rice
3-4cmwidestripsmadeby
VMPfollowedbyapplicationof
irrigationwater
Transplanting of rice seedling in strip
manually or by transplanter after 24-hrs of
irrigation water application
Furtherculturalpractices
aresameaspuddled
transplanting

7. Non-puddled Rice Establishment
Trials in Bangladesh
• 150 on-farm monsoon season (aman) and dry season
irrigated (boro) rice experiments conducted in 8 Upazilas
(sub-district) of Bangladesh during 2013 to 2015
• Each field treated as a replicate for both crop establishment
types.
• Treatments consisted of two rice establishment methods
1. CP - conventional-puddled transplanting
2. NP - non-puddled transplanting
• Farmers in aman season used a range of rice cultivars.
• BRRIdhan-28 used in all locations in all years for boro season.
• 25- to 36-day- and 35-to 55-day-old seedlings were
transplanted in aman and boro season, respectively.

8. • Between NP and CP no
significant differences were
observed on the total labour cost
for aman season rice cultivation
during 2013 and 2014;
• Significantly higher (P<0.01) cost
for total labour uses was
recorded in 2015 in CP.
• Significantly higher total labour
cost for boro season rice
cultivation was reported for CP
than NP during 2013, 2014, and
2015.
Results: Labour use

9. Results:
Rice Grain and Straw Yield
• No yield differences in 2013 and
2014
• In the boro season of 2015
highest (P<0.05) grain yield
(6.10 t ha-1) was in NP.
• During the aman and boro
seasons of 2015, significantly
higher straw yield was recorded
for NP than CP.

10. Results: Aman Season Profitability
• 49 out of 66
farmers
reported higher
yield with NP
• In aman
season, 53 out
of 66 farmers
who practiced
NP reported
higher net
returns than in
CP
•

11. Results: Boro Season Profitability
• 75 % had the
same or higher
grain yield in
NP.
• In boro season
of 2013, 2014
and 2015, the
net return was
higher in 90 -
92 % of cases in
NP than with
CP

12. Farmers’ acceptance
• Conducted FGD in all 3 years to elicit farmers’ opinions
about the suitability of non-puddled transplanting and
how their perceptions changed over time
• Questions were asked about:
• Cost of land preparation
• Labour use
• Weed
• Water use
• Grain yield
• Difficulties/observation

13. Change of farmers’ perception
• In boro season of 2013, ~55
% of farmers reported that
the adoption of NP could
reduce land preparation
cost, but after 6th season
that perception increased
up to 92 %.
• While 50 % farmers in 2013
boro season reported
higher grain yield that
increased to 70 % at the
end of aman season of
2015.
• Farmers’ perception and
experience on the negative
aspects of NP declined over
time at Alipur, Choighati
and Digram locations

14. • Farmers’ perception and experience on the negative aspects of NP declined over time at
Alipur, Choighati and Digram locations

15. Conclusions on non-puddled
rice
• 150 farmer-managed comparisons in both aman and boro
seasons during 2013, 2014, and 2015, we conclude that –
transplanting of rice seedlings in NP was feasible as a farm practice,
cost of rice cultivation was reduced, while
gross margin was increased by NP.
• Over three consecutive years comprising six rice seasons, there
was generally no significant yield difference between NP and CP;
• however, in the boro season of 2015, NP produced significantly
greater grain and straw yield of rice than CP.

16. Conclusions on non-puddled rice
• Farmers perceptions about benefits of NP increased over time
• Farmers’ perceptions about negative aspects of NP decreased over time
• These findings were consistent over farms on alluvial and High Barind Tract
soils
• In farmers’ fields, strip tillage, flooding soils for 24 hours and then
transplanting rice into non-puddled soil could be a profitable and labour-
saving option for rice establishment under conservation agriculture systems.
For further detail:

17. Option2:StripPlantedDirectSeededRice
Experiment:PerformanceEvaluationofVMPonDirect
SeededRiceinAusSeason
24-hr socked seed planted in strips by VMP
Direct Seeded Rice in growth stage
• Location: Durgapur, Rajshahi, Bangladesh
• Replication: Four (dispersed)
• Variety: BRRI dhan48
• Date of trans/planting: 27 March, 2018 in case of DSR
22 April, 2018 in case of 25-day old seedlings
• Date of harvest: DSR on 12 July, 2018; puddled transplanted on 22 July, 2018
Treatments:
T1=Rice seedlings transplanting in puddled soil
T2=Rice seed sowing by VMP

18. Methodology
• T1: Land puddled by 2WT with 4 tillage passes
Recommended basal fertilizers applied during field preparation.
25-day old seedlings transplanted manually in the fields.
Weed control done by pre- and post- emergence herbicides.
All agronomic management done as recommended.
• T2: Pre-planted herbicide (Roundup) was sprayed 1-day before
planting to control pre-germinated weeds.
2-3 cm strips made by VMP, sown 24 hours primed seed
and bended basal fertilizers in single pass operation.
Pre- and post- emergence weeds were control by herbicides.
All agronomic management done as recommended.
(Note: For seedling preparation, the rice seed was sown as the same day of
DSR establishment in the seedbed and 25-day old seedlings were
transplanted in case of puddled rice (T1)).

19. Results and discussion
2.77 2.91
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
T1 (CP) (T2) DSR
Ricegrainyieldt/ha
-98
214
-150
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
T1 (CP) (T2) DSR
Netprofit/lossUS$/ha
• Non-significant higher rice grain
yield obtained from DSR (2.91)
over puddled transplanting.
• However, significantly higher net
profit reported from DSR over
puddled transplanting.
• This results confirmed that
although DSR does not having
significant grain yield advance,
however, confirmed greater
profitability over puddled
transplanting.

20. Thank you