‘Go for direct seeded rice, save water’

CHANDIGARH:The Punjab government’s move to delay sowing and transplanting of paddy by five days has once again brought sharp focus on finding ways to save fast depleting groundwater in the state.

Either the area under waterguzzling paddy, which is Punjab’s biggest kharif (summer sown) crop, should be reduced drastically or alternative methods of cultivating the crop like the

direct seeded rice

(DSR) and system of

rice

intensification must be adopted by the state’s farmers, according to farm scientists and officials.

Leading geneticist and Green Revolution pioneer Gurdev Singh Khush, who helped improve and enlarge supply of rice globally, says the Punjab government’s move to delay sowing and transplanting of paddy for five days might not make much difference in economizing use of water. Instead, he says more drastic measures are needed. The former principal plant breeder at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila, has recommended broadcast sowing of pre-germinated rice seed without puddling and eliminating raising seedlings in the nursery.

“Direct sowing needs 30% less water and saves lot of labour costs. Many countries have switched to direct sowing of rice. I feel direct sowing is a winwin technology, particularly under declining water resources,” Khush, who was awarded the 1996 World Food Prize, told TOI in an email exchange.


‘Farmers wary of adopting this rice sowing method’

Even the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, has devoted a page in its Package of Practices for Kharif Crops to unpuddled DSR, mentioning suitable soil types, required field preparations, suitable varieties, sowing time, seed treatment, seed rate and method of sowing, weed control, irrigation and fertilizer application.

The varsity has mentioned that short duration paddy variety PR115 is most suitable for direct seeded rice and the ideal sowing time is June 1-15 inPunjab.

On the other hand, Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) chairperson Kahan Singh Pannu said farmers were wary of opting for the DSR method of cultivating paddy as the efforts to produce this technique in the state had not yielded the desired results in the past.

“Area under DSR paddy cultivation had once touched nearly 1 lakh hectares in Punjab. However, the farmers didn’t adopt this method in a big way as they found the crop had more weeds and even the yield was not stable. Due to this uncertainty, Punjab farmers stopped following the DSR method of paddy cultivation,” said Pannu, an MSc in agriculture (entomology) from PAU, Ludhiana.


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