Field Laboratory Studies on Short-term Paddy Crop in Semi-arid Region

Almost every plant process is affected directly and indirectly by the water supply. At present we are undergoing water scarcity condition due to increase in water demand for irrigation, domestic, industrial and other sectors. Availability of water remains almost constant making water deficit to go on increasing. In order to reduce water deficit between the water demand and water supply we have to think of water management techniques. The experiment was conducted in the demonstration-cum-research farm located in the eastern side of the campus of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India during July 2002 to December 2002. Staggered sowing/planting dates were tried in short-term variety ADT-36. Eight plots for each variety were used. Two phases of staggering were tried with an interval of one week between them. For normal cropping four plots were allotted. For Staggered-I cropping and Staggered-II cropping two plots apiece were allotted. Crop water requirement for different phases of planting was compiled and crop water requirement at aggregate level was found. In ADT-36, the monthly peak water demand for Staggered-I cropping and Staggered-II cropping were estimated. The peak water demand gets reduced in staggered cropping; however these were still less than peak water demand of normal cropping.