YIELD PERFORMANCE AND COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF DRY DIRECT SEEDED BORO RICE IN RESPONSE TO SOWING DATE AND IRRIGATION REGIME

Abstract

Dry direct seeding is a new technology to address the water scarcity problem faced in rice culture in boro season. An experiment was run at Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh, to determine the impact of the sowing date and irrigation schedule on the yield potential and cost effectiveness of boro rice grown under a dry direct seeding system. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design and consisted of two sowing dates viz. 10 February and 02 March; and five irrigation regimes viz., no irrigation, one irrigation at 25% field capacity (FC), two irrigations (at 25% FC and at 1 week after 25% FC), three irrigations (at 25% FC, at 1 and at 2 weeks after 25% FC) and four irrigations (at 25% FC, 1, 2 and 3 weeks after 25% FC) replicated thrice assigning sowing date in main plots and irrigation in sub-plots. The result showed that BRRI dhan58 sown on 10 February with four irrigations (at 25% FC, 1, 2 and 3 weeks after 25% FC) produced the highest grain yield and economic return which was statistically comparable to those for two (at 25% FC and at 1 week after 25% FC), and three irrigations (at 25% FC, at 1 and at 2 weeks after 25% FC). The present study concludes that rice variety BRRI dhan58 can be cultivated successfully to achieve maximum yield and economic return by sowing the seed during 10 February to 02 March and applying 2 - 3 irrigations at the vegetative phase in dry direct seeding system.