Drought management strategy: Mechanized sowing in rice production

Abstract

Drought management in dryland agriculture, when using seed drills, involves soil moisture conservation via techniques like mulching, conservation tillage, and water harvesting. Specific practices for seed drill sowing include using moisture-seeking seed drills to place seeds at optimal moisture levels, employing seed hardening and priming to improve germination and stress resistance, and using drought-resistant varieties of crops. The variety PMK (R) 3 is an early maturing variety maturing in 105 days duration and fits well with the NE monsoon period and monocrop rainfed regions and hence is the best variety suited to rainfed and semidry areas. The variety PMK (R) 3 recorded a grain yield of 3.7 tonnes per ha with 10-15% increase in yield over the other varieties namely MDU 5, ADT 43, IR 50 etc which were cultivated in the village. Number of panicles per square meter (207) was observed to be more in mechanized sowing in this variety, with higher fertile spikelet’s (panicle harvest index- 82%) under drought. Hence, the variety PMK (R)3 with mechanize sowing is highly recommended in these areas which improves the crop establishment, reduces the cost of weeding, increases the productive tiller number per plant and ultimately yield enhancement from 2.5 to 3.5 tonnes per hectare.