Alternate Kharif Rice Crop Establishment Methods and Medium Duration Varieties to Enable Cropping System Intensification in Coastal Saline Region

Shifting the rice growing season to allow earlier harvesting, may create opportunities for cropping intensification in the coastal zone of the Ganges delta. Field experiments were conducted for consecutive three kharif / wet seasons (2016-2018) in the coastal agro-ecosystem of the Indian Sundarbans to evaluate rice establishment methods and to find out suitable rice variety for higher production and earlier harvesting. Four rice establishment methods viz . conventional puddled transplanting (PTR), non-puddled transplanting (NPTR), drum seeding of pre-germinated seeds and dry direct seeding (DSR) were evaluated with different varieties of rice. Rice varieties evaluated were Amal-Mana, CR 1009 (Savitree) and Swarna-Sub 1 in 2016, CR 1009 and CR 1017 (Dharitri) in 2017 and CR 1018 (Gayatri) and Pratikshya in 2018. The drum seeded crop failed in 2017 and 2018. Higher plant height was observed in DSR treatment, which helped in better establishment of rice under submergence, whereas drum seeding was an ineffective method for wet season rice establishment. Though in the first year PTR was better in the absence of DSR, in subsequent two years, when DSR was evaluated, it was the best method of establishment followed by NPTR. Out of six rice varieties evaluated over three years, it was found that due to earlier maturity (at least by 15 days) as well as higher yield, the variety Pratikshya appears to be the most suitable one under these conditions.