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Abstract
To increase the water use efficiency (WUE) of rice, two sets of experiments were carried out from 1997 – 1999. Experiment one: Irrigation period of rice was divided into three stages: early (S1, 10 – 35 days after transplanting, [DAT]); middle (S2, 36 – 60 DAT) and late (S3, 61 – 85 DAT). Intermittent ponding (IP) was imposed at single, two stages or the entire growing period. Continuous ponding (CP) in all three stages was taken as control. Though the highest grain yield (6.71 mg ha−1) was obtained under control, this regime was responsible for the lowest WUE. In contrast, IP in all stages was responsible for maximum WUE with minimum yield level. Imposition of IP in S1 resulted in higher (0.529 kg m−3) WUE along with insignificant reduction in yield over control. Experiment two: Three puddling practices were: (i) High intensity puddling (HIP); (ii) Moderate intensity puddling (MIP); and (iii) Low intensity puddling (LIP). On average, HIP resulted in the lowest value (6.5 mm d−1) of percolation rate. Both grain yield (6.93 mg ha−1) and WUE (0.597 kg m−3) attained highest value under HIP. A decrease in puddling intensity under MIP and LIP lowered the yield by 2.97 and 17.75% respectively. In the case of WUE, the reduction was 16.27 and 54.66%.