Effect of establishment methods and weed management on direct seeded basmati rice

Abstract:

For centuries, basmati rice has been transplanted by hand into puddled fields—a method that demands roughly 30 to 40 person-days of labour per hectare and consumes 1,200 to 1,500 mm of water per crop season. Direct seeding offers a way to cut both inputs, but its success depends heavily on the establishment method used and the weed management program adopted. This research compared three establishment methods—dry broadcasting, wet drum seeding, and conventional transplanting—under five weed management treatments at Vikram Dev Agricultural College, Jeypore, Odisha, during kharif 2022. The experiment followed a split-plot design with establishment methods in main plots and weed management in subplots. Transplanting produced the highest grain yield (5.13 t ha⁻¹), but wet drum seeding combined with pretilachlor followed by bispyribac-sodium reached 4.61 t ha⁻¹—within 10 percent of the transplanted check. Weed density and dry weight were significantly higher under dry broadcasting than under the other two methods. The sequential herbicide treatment (pretilachlor fb bispyribac-sodium) reduced weed density by 71.4 percent compared to the unweeded control. Labour savings under wet drum seeding were 18.6 person-days ha⁻¹ relative to transplanting. These results suggest that wet drum seeding with a pre- and post-emergence herbicide sequence is a viable labour-saving alternative for basmati rice production in eastern India.