Mechanised non-puddled transplanting of boro rice following mustard conserves resources and enhances productivity

Dry season irrigated rice (boro) can be transplanted into non-puddled soil when it follows a mustard crop in Bangladesh. However, the options for non-puddled transplanting, including reduced tillage (RT) or zero tillage (ZT) with manual or mechanised transplanting have not been evaluated in farmers' fields. Therefore, two on-farm experiments were conducted over three years to compare two transplanting methods (manual - Man, mechanical - Mech) and three tillage methods (reduced tillage - RT, zero tillage - ZT, and conventional tillage - CT (puddling)). For both transplanting methods, grain yield with CT and RT was similar. However, there was a slight (3-4%) but significant decline in grain yield with ZT in three out of four instances. Total irrigation input increased with decrease in tillage, by around 100-150 mm in RT compared with CT, and by 200-300 mm or 25-30% in ZT compared with CT. Grain yield and gross margin of mechanically transplanted rice with CT, RT and ZT were higher than or similar to that for manually transplanted rice, while the labour requirement for mechanical transplanting was 5% of that for manual transplanting. Furthermore, mechanical transplanting provides the opportunity to advance crop establishment.