Direct seeding rice with drum seeder is made easy to rice cultivation in North Coastal Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Paddy is major predominant crop during Kharif in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, cultivated in an area of 1,17,608 ha, out of total cropped area of 1,92,638 ha with productivity of 2664 kg/ha. Farmers grow crop by adopting traditional method of paddy cultivation, use more seed rate, and close spacing, late transplanting with over aged seedlings common phenomenon due to erotic rainfall climate change. Scarcity of labour and escalation in labor wages, reduction in labor efficiency are leading to low net returns. Introduction of Drum Seeder technology which is very easy and less labour involved. Drum seeder technology is boon to farmers to save money and time and crop comes to harvest 7-10 days earlier than normal transplanted paddy. Executed On-Farm Demonstrations (OFDs) in farmer fields during two consecutive seasons of Kharif, 2018 and Kharif, 2019. Drum seeder technology in paddy recorded 12.49% yield over normal transplanting method of paddy cultivation. The results from the study showed that the farmers realized the 58.19% increase in net income due to increased grain yield by 12.49% with reduction of cost of cultivation by 9.35%, it could be attributed to reduction in manual labour of 12 man labour and 25 women labour per ha and also increase in yield attributes and yield.