Comparative assessment of wet direct seeded rice (drum seeder operated) cultivation technology with traditional rice growing practice in Lakhimpur district of Assam

Rice is the major crop of most of the Asian countries. Countries like India, where rice is the staple food, requires substantial amount of rice production to feed its huge population. To meet the consumption demand of the Indian population which is exponentially increasing, traditional cultivation practices of rice have turned nearly obsolete now-a-days to reach the optimum production and productivity level required for the country. It is a known fact that traditional cultivation of paddy is highly laborious and cost intensive. Therefore, with an attempt to reduce the drudgery of the farmer as well as the cost of cultivation in the field, and also to increase the production of rice by adopting farm mechanization, technologies like Wet Direct Seeded Rice (drum seeder operated) was introduced in the selected farmers’ fields. Hence, a comparative study was held between Wet Direct Seeded Rice (drum seeder operated) technology and traditional rice growing practice in Lakhimpur district of Assam. Experiments were conducted on direct seeded paddy using eight-row drum seeder under puddled condition in farmers’ fields of Lakhimpur district during Kharif season 2019, Boro 2019–20, Kharif 2020 for three consecutive years to evaluate the performance of the eight row paddy drum seeder. Drum seeder technology reduced the cost of transplanting and resulted in higher returns to farmers over normal transplanting of paddy seeds. The labour requirement was found to be very less as compared to the traditional method of transplanting. The results showed that use of paddy drum seeder increased the grain yield as compared to farmer's practice of transplanting. From the economic analysis it was found out that cost of cultivation for manual transplanting was more than that of Wet Direct Seeded Rice (WDSR). A benefit cost ratio of 2.41 was found in case of WDSR which is more than that of the B:C ratio of manual transplanting i.e., 1.42. Data of parameters like plant height (cm), number of tillers/hill, number of plants per square meter, number of grains per panicle and yield (kg/ha) were recorded from both the methods.