Adoption Status of Direct Seeded Rice Technology by the Farmers of Punjab

Direct-seeded rice (DSR) is a possible alternative to conventional puddled transplantedrice, where rice crop is seeded directly in non-puddled fields. The study was conducted toascertain the adoption status of recommended practices of DSR. Personal interviews wereconducted to collect data from randomly selected 210 farmers from three districtsrepresenting different agro-climatic regions of Punjab. Study revealed that selected farmershad adopted DSR on 49.20 per cent of their total area under paddy cultivation. Slightlyhigher number of selected farmers had adopted Tar-Wattar, a new technique of DSR overdry soil method. Only 18.52 per cent respondents had applied first irrigation as perrecommendations of Tar-Wattar method, whereas majority (67.59%) had applied firstirrigation before 21 days. 26.67 per cent farmers had adopted most suitable variety PR-126 and sown it at recommended time. However, in case of other varieties, majority offarmers did not follow recommended time of sowing. A smaller number of farmers haveapplied zinc, iron and sulphur fertilizers to ameliorate micro nutrient deficiencies. Averageyield of others varieties and PR 126 were found to be nearly identical, but due to lessercost of cultivation in DSR as compared to transplanted rice, adopter farmers’ fetched highernet return.