Rescheduling of Wet Season (T. Aman) Rice Planting for Cropping Intensification in Coastal Bangladesh

Abstract

About 1.0 million ha coastal lands in Bangladesh are mono-cropped suffer from varying degree of soil salinity, waterlogging and climate vulnerability. Low yielding, traditional T. Aman rice is grown only in wet season. Growing non-rice crop after late harvested T. Aman rice is not profitable. This study was aimed to introduce high yielding, short duration T. Aman rice varieties for advancing its harvesting time and to make the avenue for timely establishment of dry season crops. Varietal trials were made at Dacope and Amtali under ACIAR funded project during 2016-2018 and compared with local cultivars. Among tested varieties BRRI dhan76 followed by BRRI dhan77 and BRRI dhan54 in Dacope and BRRI dhan77 followed by BRRI dhan76 and BRRI dhan54 in Amtali were preferred for 0.5–1.0 tha−1 yield advantage and 15–25 days earliness compared to traditional varieties. Early harvesting of T. Aman created the avenue of timely establishment of rice and non-rice crops depending on availability of fresh water and thus crop intensification and land productivity was improved. The new cropping system increased annual rice yield and farmers’ profits by 1.5- to 2-folds compared with traditional system without environmental degradation. This technique can be replicated in similar coastal zones of Bangladesh.