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European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol. 10, No. 3

Publication Date: June 25, 2022

DOI:10.14738/aivp.103.12492. Bhardwaj, A. K., Soman, P., Sharma, N., Pandiaraj, T., & Labh, B. K. (2022). Crop Establishment Methods and Micro Irrigation for

Enhancing Productivity of Total System and Water in Rice-Wheat Cropping System in Haryana: An On-Farm Study. European Journal

of Applied Sciences, 10(3). 603-616.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Crop Establishment Methods and Micro Irrigation for Enhancing

Productivity of Total System and Water in Rice-Wheat Cropping

System in Haryana: An On-Farm Study

A. K. Bhardwaj

Senior Agronomist, Jain Irrigation System Ltd.

Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

P. Soman

Principal Agronomist (Global), Jain Irrigation System Ltd.

Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Neeraj Sharma

Executive Engineer

Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Haryana, India

T. Pandiaraj

Assistant Professor, College of Agriculture

(ANDUAT, Ayodhya), Azamgarh, U.P., India

B. K. Labh

Vice President, Jain Irrigation System Ltd.

Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT

Rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS) is sustenance for the majority of people in

India contributing food security to the nation. However, in the past two decades,

water shortage is a serious constraint to nourishing and increasing the productivity

of RWCS. Many technological interventions such as raised seed beds, direct seeding,

mechanical planting, laser levelling of the land, etc., have been tried to save a

significant amount of water. Of which, micro irrigation offers a promising

technology on water saving. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to evaluate

the grain yield and water productivity of rice-wheat rotation system under different

crop establishment and irrigation methods. The treatment consists of three

different methods of establishment (i.e., i. direct seeded rice, DSR/Zero tillage, ZT

in wheat; ii. mechanical transplanting for rice/Happy seeder for wheat; iii. Manual

method) and three irrigation systems (i.e., i. conventional flood irrigation; ii. Drip;

iii. Sprinkler irrigations) along with farmers’ practice. This study was carried out

for three years from 2018-19 to 2020-21 as on farm study at Gumthala Garhu

village, Pehowa of Kurukshetra district, Haryana, India. The manual planting

method recorded 7.8% more rice yield and 1.3% more wheat yield over DSR/ZT.

The yield advantage due to drip irrigation over flood irrigation method was 10.27%

and 2.24% in rice and wheat, respectively. The manually planted crop (11827 kg

ha-1) exerted a significant effect on TSP and on an average a 105% productivity

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European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol. 10, Issue 3, June-2022

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

enhancement was recorded over the DSR/ZT (11263 kg ha-1) among the

establishment methods. Drip irrigation (11970 kg ha-1) resulted in 106.69%

productivity enhancement of RWCS over flood irrigation (11219 kg ha-1). Physical

water productivity (PWP) and economic water productivity (EWP) for irrigation

water use (IWU) and total consumptive water use (TCWU) of manual planting and

drip irrigation were superior to other practices in the total system. AS for water use,

manual establishment method recorded 14% less water use over DSR/ZT.

Similarly, drip irrigation could save 41% and sprinkler irrigation 37% water over

that in flood irrigation method. Therefore, micro irrigation could be a sound

technology for water saving in RWCS, thus allowing sustainable food grain

production in water scarcity regions.

Keywords: Drip, Happy Seeder, Sprinkler, Water Productivity, Zero Tillage

INTRODUCTION

Rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS) system is of vital for food security in South Asia

contributing, for instance, 60% of the total calorie intake and 85% of the total cereal production

in India [1]. The RWCS is grown in South Asia on about 13Mha; of which, in India (10 m ha),

Pakistan (2 m ha), Bangladesh (0.5 m ha) and Nepal (0.5 m ha) and large (85%) of the RWCS

area falls in the Indo- Gangetic Plains (IGP). The RWCS is prevalent in the northwest IGP where

it has popularised fast after 1960s as a result of big size of farm, rapid custom of tractors for

tillage and land preparation, accessibility of improved high yielding rice and wheat varieties,

the extensive use of good quality groundwater for irrigation and large utilization of

agrochemicals [2]. However, during the past decade, it witnessed stagnated or declined yields

and there are yawning gaps between potential yields, trial yields and farmers’ yields [3].

The RWCS has intensified the problems related with soil structure deterioration, depletion of

total nutrient status and decreasing groundwater tables resulting in decreased total factor

productivity such as crop, land and water. The conventional RWCS farming practices are

extremely exhaustive in terms of water, labour and power [4]. However, the main peril to

sustaining or increasing the productivity of RWCS of India is probably water scarcity. Haryana

and Punjab states of Indian IGPs are growing rice at the cost of their natural resources. In the

north west IGPs, the groundwater table are decreasing at 0.1–1.0 m year-1.

. Mahajan et al. [5]

projected that the annual per capita water availability in India is expected to decrease from

1600 m3 to 1000 m3 by 2025. NASA gravity mapping satellite ‘GRACE’ reported a drawdown of

groundwater by ~30 cm year− 1 from 440,000 km2 area of North West India, signifying a decline

of 0.04 m groundwater year− 1 [6]. Thus, in evaluating strategies for saving water, it is vital to

study the total cropping system over time rather than individual crops in isolation.

Water productivity can be enhanced by increasing yield and/or reducing water use. There have

been significant surges in irrigation and total water productivity of RWCS in India in the last

few decades mostly because of improved productivity of rice and wheat due to the high yielding

cultivars and management of nutrients, water, pests and diseases and weeds [7,8]. The tangible

water-saving technologies are those which curb the unproductive evaporation losses and

provision the share of unproductive evaporation to transpiration to favour inflow of soil

nutrients to the plants through roots. In this context, micro-irrigation systems (sprinkler and

drip) have the scope to enhance productivity and use efficiency of irrigation water by supplying

water to match the crop demand, minimizing the various losses and usually keeping moist only

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Bhardwaj, A. K., Soman, P., Sharma, N., Pandiaraj, T., & Labh, B. K. (2022). Crop Establishment Methods and Micro Irrigation for Enhancing

Productivity of Total System and Water in Rice-Wheat Cropping System in Haryana: An On-Farm Study. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 10(3).

603-616.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.103.12492

closer to rootzone and creating scope to infiltrate more rainwater. There are limited studies

evaluated using these technologies in RWCS. Irrigation water use was reduced by about 52%

[9] and 78% [10] in rice and wheat with drip irrigation over conventional farmer’s practices,

respectively. Among different agronomical water and energy-saving technologies, direct

seeding rice (DSR), mechanical transplanter for rice, no till wheat and Happy Seeder for wheat

plantation are some of the cutting-edge technologies. Therefore, these technologies could be

expected to cut the undesirable irrigation water losses particularly in regions where shortage

of water is a problem.

In IGPs, rice crop cultivating in the field with continuous flooded method is a traditional

practice. DSR with the soil moisture at field capacity has been recommended for enhancing

irrigation water productivity (IWP) in the IGPs. A significantly higher IWP in DSR was reported

compared to puddle transplanted rice [11]. Rice transplanting in puddled conditions involves

intensive labour input. In recent times, availability of labour has been considerably decreased

especially during the peak season for rice transplanting and thus raising the cultivation cost. In

this regard, mechanical transplanting rice (MTR) has been the promised technique as compared

to manual method due to the advantage of labour saving and similar and/or more yield. DSR or

MTR involved relatively lower irrigation water use (less 125 mm) over transplanted rice [12].

Bhatt [13] observed that MTR increased IWP over DSR. In some studies, MTR resulted in grain

higher yield and IWP than DSR or the manual transplanting [14,15].

In the past two decades, zero till (ZT) wheat area has expanded substantially under RWCS in

the IGPs with sustainable increment in yield, profits and IWP. The ZT wheat could result in

improved soil health and reduced consumptive water use [16]. In addition, ZT wheat can

increase both crop and water productivity [17, 18]. The Happy Seeder, a modified ZT machine,

has been the most promising technology for eco-friendly rice residue management [16].

Another approach on water saving is Happy Seeder (HS) technology that wheat sown by HS on

residue soil moisture can reduce at least one pre-sowing irrigation equivalent to irrigation

water saving by ~30% [19].

In this study, different irrigation water productivities were estimated under different

establishment and irrigation methods. There are few studies where the estimation of the water

productivities under micro-irrigation systems (drip or sprinkler) in India for RWCS. The

present study focuses on the agronomical evaluation of water saving technologies on RWCS,

under on-farm conditions in Haryana, India.

Water productivity offers as a promising measure for estimating the degree of sustainable

water use in agriculture. Thus, physical water productivity (PWP) has been used to evaluate

the efficiency of a total system. PWP is defined as the ratio of agricultural output to the amount

of water consumed (from all available source of water -rainfall, and irrigation). The perception

of total consumptive water use (TCWU) used in PWP, is estimated based on the

evapotranspiration rate in the region. Rice-wheat system being an irrigation intensive system,

this scientific measurement of water productivity based on PWP alone does not provide the

real field condition, since the volume of irrigation water applied in the system is often more

than the actual water requirement of the crop owing to the low overall efficiency of the surface

as well as groundwater irrigation system. Therefore, we have used the concept of irrigation

water productivity, which measures the crop productivity corresponding to unit volume of