Field Assessment of Strip-Tillage for Summer Rice Cultivation in Bangladesh

Abstract

Farmers in the tropics and subtropics of Asia usually transplant rice seedlings in puddled soils which makes crop establishment and weed control easier. But rice can be grown successfully by planting into non-puddled soils after a single shallow pass of strip tillage. This method was globally reported to produce the same yield of rice as traditional puddle farming and saved labor, fuel and water, too. With this aim to asses the effect of strip tillage in the productivity of rice in Bangladesh, a trial was done at a farmer's field in the Gauriopur area of Mymensingh district in Bangladesh from July to December 2014. The productivity of four summer rice varieties, BR11, BRRI dhan46, BRRI dhan52, and BINA Dhan-7, was compared under strip tillage (ST) vs. conventional tillage (CT). The CT had two main ploughings done by a two-wheel tractor, and the ST was done in a single pass by a Versatile Multi-crop Planter. The interactive results of study showed that, except for the number of effective tillers per m2, grain yield, and BCR, none of the other parameters changed significantly between the treatments. The highest BCR profit came from BR 11 grown under ST, followed by BRRI dhan52, BRRI dhan46, and BINA Dhan-7 grown under ST. The lowest BCR was measured from BINA Dhan-7 grown under CT. This could be because the highest and lowest amount of effective and sterile tillers and the maximum grain yield were seen in the respective treatments. The ST had a 26% higher BCR than the CT, which could have been due to the 3% higher grain yield that came from having 6% more effective tillers and 42% lower sterile tillers per m2 area. In the end, we could say that ST is a more profitable way to grow rice than CT, and BR 11 is the best of the other three types.