In-situ water conservation in upland paddy field to improve productivity in north-west Himalayan region of India

Abstract

The hill and mountain agro-ecosystem of NW Himalaya is primarily characterized by limited land under irrigation. Due to farming on terraces, large scale water resource development to store water for supplemental irrigation is not feasible in this region. Construction of trenches may be a good option to hold the runoff and enrich the soil moisture profile. The present study was undertaken to determine the optimal size of the trench through field experimentation, and also to determine the scope of on-farm water management and improvement in soil moisture regime. Four sizes (namely TR1, TR2, TR3 and TR4) of trenches were constructed using 25, 20, 17 and 12 % of the terrace area, respectively. It was observed that all the trenches provided higher average soil moisture and gave 32.9, 50.3 63.6 and 58.4 % higher yield than the control, respectively. However, the yield was statistically at par for TR2, TR3 and TR4. After economical evaluation it is concluded that the trenches may be used as to increase the soil moisture in terraced land, and consequently productivity of upland rice economically, but the area of such trenches must be limited to 12–17 %.