EVALUATION OF SYSTEM OF RICE (Oryza sativa L.) INTENSIFICATION (SRI) IN IRRIGATED AGRO-ECOSYSTEM OF PUNJAB

The system of rice intensification (SRI) is a new technique for rice culture. The main features of this system are: transplanting of young seedlings singly in a square pattern with wide spacing, using organic fertilizer, hand weeding and keeping the paddy soil moist during the vegetative growth phase. Two experiments were conducted at rice research farm of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during 2006 and 2007 to evaluate the performance of SRI against conventional transplanting method. The results revealed that significant phenotypic changes occurred in plant structure and function but no significant yield differences were observed in SRI system in comparison to conventional transplanting system. During 2006, no significant yield differences were observed in SRI system in comparison to conventional transplanting system. The SRI system gave 79.8 q/ha grain yield when the nursery date was kept same and 78.4 q/ha grain yield when transplanting date was kept same against 78.9 q/ha in conventional transplanting method. During 2007, varietal performance was studied in SRI system. SRI transplanting (10 days old seedling) resulted 11.8 and 27.9 per cent increase in yield over conventional transplanting method and SRI direct seeding method, respectively. The cultivar 17A/R10 showed superiority in SRI transplanting system (10 days old seedlings) as compared to cultivar PR-115 and HRI-152, respectively in terms of grain yield.