SYSTEM OF RICE INTENSIFICATION (SRI) CULTIVATION 

Season

• Dry season with assured irrigation is more suitable. 

• Difficulty in crop establishment may be seen in areas with heavy downpour 

(North east monsoon periods of Tamil Nadu)

Varieties: Hybrids and varieties with heavy tillering.

NURSERY 

Seed rate: 7- 8 kg for single seedling/hill.

Preparation of nursery area

Prepare 100 m2 nursery to plant 1 ha area. Select a leveled area near the water source. 

Spread a plastic sheet or used polythene gunny bags on the shallow raised bed to prevent roots growing deep into soil.

Preparation of soil mixture: 

Four (4) m3of soil mix is needed for each 100 m2of nursery. Mix 70% soil + 20% well-decomposed pressmud / bio-gas slurry / FYM + 10% rice hull.Incorporate in the soil mixture 1.5 kg of powdered di-ammonium phosphate or 2 kg 17-17-17 NPK fertilizer.

Filling in soil mixture: 

Place a wooden frame of 0.5 m long, 1 m wide and 4 cm deep divided into 

4 equal segments on the plastic sheet or banana leaves. Fill the frame almost to the top with the soil mixture. Pre-germinating the seeds 2 days before sowing: Soak thes for 24 hr, drain and incubate the soaked seeds for 24 hr, sow when the seeds sprout and radical (seed root) grows to 2-3 

mm long.

Sowing: 

Sow the pre-germinated seeds weighing 90-100 g/m2 (100g dry seed may weigh 130g after  sprouting) uniformly and cover them with dry soil to a thickness of 5mm. Sprinkle water  immediately using rose can to soak the bed and remove the wooden frame and continue the process  until the required area is completed. 

Watering:

 Water the nursery with rose-can as and when needed (twice or thrice a day) to keep the soil moist. Protect the nursery from heavy rains for the first 5  DAS. At 6 DAS, maintain thin film of water all around the seedling mats. Drain the water 2 days  

before removing the seedling mats fort 

Spraying fertilizer solution (optional): If seedling growth is slow, sprinkle 0.5% urea + 0.5% zinc sulfate solution at 8-10 DAS. 

Lifting seedling mats: seedlings reach sufficient height for planting at 15 days. Lift the seedling  mats and transport them to main field. 

MAIN FIELD PREPARATION

• Puddled lowland prepared as described in transplanted rice.

• Perfect leveling is a pre-requisite for the water management proposed hereunder

Transplanting

• Single seedling of 15 days old.

• Square planting of 25 x 25 cm.

• Fill up the gaps between 7 and 10 DAT.

• Transplant within 30 minutes of pulling out of seedlings.

Irrigation management

• Irrigation only to moist the soil in the early period of 10 days

• Restoring irrigation to a maximum depth of 2.5cm after development of hairline cracks in the soil until panicle initiation

Increasing irrigation depth to 5.0cm after PI one day after disappearance of ponded water

Weed management

• Use rotary weeder / Cono weeder

• Moving the weeder with forward and backward motion to bury the weeds and as well to aerate the soil at 7-10 days interval from 10-15 days after planting on either direction of the rows and column.

Nutrient managements

• As per transplanted rice. 

• Use of Leaf colour chart (LCC) has more advantage in N management.

N management through LCC

• Time of application is decided by LCC score

• Take observations from 14 DAT in transplanted rice or 21 DAS in direct seeded rice.

• Repeat the observations at weekly intervals up to heading

• Observe the leaf colour in the fully opened third leaf from the top as index leaf. 

• Match the leaf colour with the colours in the chart during morning hours (8-10 am). 

• Take observation in 10 places. 

• LCC critical value is 3.0 in low N response cultures like ‘White ponni’ and 4.0 in other 

cultivars and hybrids.

• When 6/10 observations show less than the critical colour value, N can be applied @ 35kg N/ha in dry season and 30kg N/ha in wet season per application.

• Green manure and farm yard manure application will enhance the growth and yield of rice in this system approach.

Other package of practices as recommended to transplanted rice