Up-scaling of water saving technologies in rice cultivation under corporate social responsibility scheme

Abstract

Field demonstrations were carried out in 25 locations each separately in Villupuram district of Tamilnadu for upscaling water saving technology in rice cultivation like System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Alternate Wetting and Drying Irrigation(AWDI). The bio-metric observation data was recorded in the earmarked area in the demonstration field plot and the computed average mean data was used for analysis. In the demonstrations, the total water requirement, quantity of water required to produce one kilogram of rice and number of irrigations were significantly less in SRI compared to conventional planting system. There was water saving of 350 mm recording 29.16 percentage. Similarly, AWDI demonstrations revealed that, AWDI saved 270-350 mm more water per hectare than the normal irrigation system. Increase in the grain yields obtained with water saving made the farmers confident on these water saving technologies.