Lessons from experiments with system of rice intensification in the state of odisha

1. Professor , Soil Science,
OIC, AINP on Biodiversity-Biofertilizer
Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry,
OUAT, Bhubaneswar
Email: sushanta_1959@yahoo.com
Lessons From
Experiments with the
Systems of Rice Intensification (SRI)
in the state of Odisha
Dr. Sushanta Kumar Pattanayak

2. Situation-I
• It was 2008, I was working as PC, KVK Sambalpur.
• Form tribal area of Rairakhol, I could collect 200g of Kala Subas dhan
(Kalajira).
• Only 20 g seed was saved and used for multiplication.
• Twelve days old (12) single seedlings were planted.
• Thirty seven (37) kg scented rice was produced.
• It was distributed among 180 farmers.
Lesson Learnt :
A good amount of precious seed could be produced from very small amount of paddy seeds with the
adoption of SRI-method.

3. Background :
• Extension workers of the state Government and University were in
doubt, whether SRI can be adopted with organic / inorganic
sources of nutrients
• I was asked to solve the doubt
Situation-II [2009]
Objectives :
For Rice with SRI method
Whether,
- nutrients sources to be purely organic ?
- nutrients sources to be purely inorganic.
- nutrients sources to be integrated ?

4. Site : Rice Block KVK farm Chipilima, Sambalpur.
Situation : Mid upland (Good drainage with irrigation facility)
Season : Kharif
Soil Texture – Loamy Sand
Reaction – (pHw) : 6.92 (Near neutral)
Organic Carbon : 5.3 gkg-1 soil (medium)
Available N (kg/ha) : 254
P : 14.7 medium
K : 157
S : 11.4 (low)
Test variety : Monoswini (120 days duration)
Fertilizer dose : N – P2O5 – K2O – Borax – ZnSO4 (kg/ha)
60 – 30 – 30 – 10 - 25
Experimental details :

5. 1. Conventional Practice.
2. SRI with organic sources of nutrients.
3. SRI with inorganic sources of nutrients.
4. SRI with integrated sources.
Treatments Compared
Practice Dose
(kg/ha)
Nutrient sources Seedling
Num
ber/
hill
Age
(days)
Organic Inorganic
Conventional 60 – 30 - 30 X DAP, Urea, MOP 2 21
SRI – Organic 60 – 30 - 30 (a) VC (1 t/ha)
(b) Glaricidia (GLM) 5 t/ha)
(c) Neem oil cake 0.5 t/ha
(d) FYM :
(Total N of 60 kg/ha
was adjusted through
FYM)
X
01 12
SRI – Inorganic 60 – 30 - 30
X
Navaratna (20-20-0-13)
Urea, MOP, Borax
ZnSO4
01 12
SRI - Integrated 60 – 30 - 30 FYM, VC, NC, GLM
(30-15-15)
Navaratna (20-20-0-13)
Urea, MOP , Borax,
ZnSO4
(30-15-15)
01 12

6. The nursery should be near to the planting site- otherwise seedlings get injured
which prevented quick establishment of seedlings.
Problems encountered (During planting)
For keeping root system intact sufficient care need to be taken during nursery
preparation with lot of organics.
Fifteen (15 %) per cent more labour was needed for planting with SRI method,
compared to conventional practice
There was lag period for seedling establishment at least 14 days which creates
harassment in farmers with the apprehension of crop failure

7. SRI (INORGANIC) SRI-INTEGRATED
Tillering behaviour of Manaswini variety of rice under
different cultivation systems
Cultivation system
Average tiller number/plant (Days of growth)
0 10th 20th 40th 60th
Normal 2 4.2 5.4 10.0 12.0
SRI- Organic 1 3.2 13.2 19.7 28.6
SRI- Inorganic 1 3.4 13.8 19.9 26.1
SRI - Integrated 1 3.5 14.3 22.2 28.8

9. Observations on weeding practice
Sl.No. System of
cultivation
Manual
weeding
time
(hr m-1)
Man hour
(hrha-1)
Remark
1 Conventional 1.2 196 Costly affair
(Rs=6540/-)
2 SRI-Inorganic* 0.47 68 Rs. 2270 +
cost of
herbicide
3 SRI-Integrated* 0.48 70 Rs 2300 +
cost of
weedicide
4 SRI-organic No
hand weeding
70 Weeding with
Only
conno/mandua
weeder.

10. Difficulty faced
• Practically it was difficult to keep the rice field free of weeds using
mandua/conno weeder without using weedicide or hand weeding.
• Weed seed transmission possibilities were there (If not properly
weeded).
• Labourers were generally hesitating to use conno/mandua weeder,
because it was laboursom process (Even if under favourable
condition like irrigating field before using hand operated weeders).
Lession : Power operated machines will help both planting and weeding

11. SRI (ORGANIC) GENERAL
Yield performance of manaswini variety of rice under
different cultivation system
Cultivation
Practice
Yield (qha-1) Total HI Straw :
Grain
Grain Straw Chaff
Conventional 38.0 57.0 1.9 96.9 0.39 1.50
SRI-Organic 41.5(9)** 60.0 1.1 102.6 0.41 1.45
SRI-Inorganic 42.8(13) 66.0 1.8 110.6 0.39 1.54
SRI-Integrated 52.0*(36) 62.0 0.7 114.7 0.45 1.19
Lessons learnt
1. Rice cultivation with SRI was superior to conventional practice with respect to yield (9-36 per cent higher
than conventional practice).
2 Integrated system of nutrient management was superior to both Organic (25 per cent) as well as inorganic
(22 per cent).
Observtion : The crop did not lodge with Organic and Integrated system

12. Avail.- N (kg/ha) : 220-232 (low)
Avail.- P (kg/ha) : 13.8-15.1(medium)
Avail.- K (kg/ha) : 108-127 (low)
Avail.- S (kg/ha) : 7.30-8.8 (low)
Avail-Zn (mg/kg) : 0.3-0.4 (low)
Site: Five villages
of Badatara
Panchayat –Puri
1.Achyutapur
2.Bom
3.Badatara
4.Nilakantheswar
5.Gadarpass
Situation : III

13. At the outset the farmers were agreed to conduct demonstration
with the assumption that SRI method is nothing but,
-line transplanting of rice,
-irrespective of the age of the seedling, and
-quantity of seed requirement.
As a result they demanded for the seeds as per the conventional
practice and sown the seeds in the nursery 25 days before planting.
Difficulty faced
Lesson learnt
Lack of proper knowledge about SRI and inadequate demonstration to
build up confidence level of farmers.

14. Sources of nutrients for comparative evaluation of the system of
Rice cultivation
Sl.No Cultivation
Practice
Sources of nutrients Doses (kgha-1)
N – P2O5 – K2O – SO4
–– Borax - ZnSO4
(kg/ha)
Remark
1 Farmers practice DAP,Urea, MOP 90-30-21-0-0-0
(PRA Survey)
Blanket &
unbalanced
2 SRI Inorganic Navaratna(20-20-0-
13)MOP,Borax,ZnSO4
75-30-40-29-10-25 Soil test based
3 SRI Organic GM (Dhanicha),Azolla,
Neem oil cake
Azospirillum, PSB (1:1)
vermicompost
House hold Ash
8tha-1 & 1 tha-1
1 tha-1
4 kg each ha-1
1 tha-1
1tha-1
(75-30-40)
4 SRI Integrated 50 % each of T2 & T3 75-30-40-20-10-25

15. TREATMENTS Avg. Tiller/
hill at
70th day
Avg. Tiller/
hill at
120th day
Effective
Tiller/ hill
No. of
grains /
panicle
CONVENTIONAL 25.7 13.6(-47) 12.9(-5) 142.0
ORGANIC-SRI 27.9 21.8(-22) 20.9(-4) 161.0(13)
INORGANIC-SRI 35.0 25.4(-27) 23.2(-9) 172.0(21)
INTEGRATED –SRI 38.9 32.0(-18) 29.7(-7) 188..0(32)
*Data in the parenthesis indicate % decrease / increase
Tillering behabiour of Swarna

16. Rate of tillering of rice under the influence of two systems of
cultivation supplied with nutrients from various sources.
System and
nutrient sources
Rate of tillering (days after planting)
0 14 28 35 42 70
Conventional 0 0.33 0.35 0.38 0.54 0.36
SRI-Organic 0 0.18 0.24 0.42 0.56 0.40
SRI-Inorganic 0 0.31 0.37 0.51 0.58 0.50
SRI-Integrated 0 0.30 0.41 0.56 0.73 0.56
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0 14 28 35 42 70
Growyhratecm/day
Days after planting
Conventional SRI-Organic SRI-Inorganic SRI-Integrated
Lesson:
1. Fourteen(14) initial days lag period, under SRI method gives poor comparative picture
with conventional practices.
2. This can be solved by planting of no/less injured young seedlings while uprooting and
planting.

17. TREATMENTS GRAIN
(q/ha)
STRAW
( q/ha)
CHAFF
(q/ha)
Gr:St HI
CONVENTIONAL 40.0(-33) 81.49 0. 40 1:2.04 0.33
ORGANIC-SRI 51.1(-14) 70.00 0. 44 1:1.37 0.42
INORGANIC-SRI 53.2(-10) 88.75 0 42 1:1.67 0.38
INTEGRATED –SRI 59.3 80.73 0 .37 1:1.36 0.43
CD (P=0.05) 3.0 4.6 0.03 -- --
CV (P=0.05) 7.0 7.2 8.9 -- --

18. TREATMENTS N P K Ca Mg S
(kg/ha)
CONVENTIONAL 105.1 19.9 120.0 40.8 23.6 4.2
ORGANIC-SRI 117.1 21.4 135.9 44.7 27.1 4.5
INORGANIC-SRI 127.3 23.4 154.4 41.5 33.1 5.2
INTEGRATED –
SRI
120.9 23.0 142.3 47.1 30.3 4.2
CD (P=0.05) 6.9 1.2 8.1 2.6 1.63 0.22
SRI
INORGANIC

19. TREATMENTS NUE PUE KUE
CONVENTIONAL 44.4 304 222
ORGANIC-SRI 68.1 390 160
INORGANIC-SRI 70.9 406 166
INTEGRATED –SRI 79.0 453 185
NUTRIENT USE EFFICIENCY BY RICE (kg
grain/kg nutrient) AS INFLUENCED BY
DIFFERENT SOURCES OF NUTRIENTS IN SRI

20. PRACTICES COST OF
PRODUCTION(Rs.)
GROSS
INCOME (Rs.)
B:C
CONVENTIONAL 25 000 48 845 1.95
ORGANIC-SRI 27 560 60 088 2.18
INORGANIC-
SRI
24 400 63 603 2.60
INTEGRATED
–SRI
25 090 69 760 2.80

21. PRACTICES O.C
(g/kg)
Avail. N
(kg/ha)
Avail. P
(kg/ha)
Avail. K
(kg/ha)
CONVENTIONAL 4.0 204 14.7 77
ORGANIC-SRI 5.1 268 15.8 117
INORGANIC-SRI 4.1 200 16.2 88
INTEGRATED –
SRI
4.7 251 15.1 98
INITIAL 4.4 226 14.1 118
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
4
5.1
4.1
4.7 4.4
O.C (g/kg)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
204
268
200
251
226
Avail. N (kg/ha)
13
13.5
14
14.5
15
15.5
16
16.5
14.7
15.8
16.2
15.1
14.1
Avail. P(kg/ha)
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
77
117
88
98
118
Avail. K(kg/ha)

22. Lessons learnt :
• The SRI method is strictly site specific , and less season specific.
• It is not free from pest and disease attack, hence needs due attention.
• Water management is critical, but flexibility should be there for its
management particularly just before using weeders.
• Allowing drying of soil till appearance of nail cracks may help
aeration, better root growth but will enhance carbon loss from soil.
• Integrated system of nutrient management based on soil test will
facilitate balanced nutrient management for sustainable soil health
preventing nutrient mining.
• Mechanization of the system , starting from land preparation to
planting, weeding, harvesting and processing with small sized
machines will help the system to survive and sustain.
• Constant and collaborative efforts should be made by University,
State Department of Agriculture and NGOs for effective
implementation and adoption of the method and systems through
orientation and practical demonstrations.