Vol. 9, Issue 5 (2020)

Author(s):
Jatesh Kathpalia, Rashmi Tyagi and Dharam Bir Yadav

Abstract:
Rice, the staple food of more than half of the population of the world, is an important target to provide food security and livelihoods for millions. Imminent water crisis, water-demanding nature of traditionally cultivated rice and climbing labour costs ramble the search for alternative management methods to increase water productivity, system sustainability and profitability. Direct seeded rice (DSR) technique is becoming popular now a day because of its low-input demanding nature. It offers a very exciting opportunity to improve water and environmental sustainability. It involves sowing pre-germinated seeds into a puddled soil surface (wet seeding), standing water (water seeding) or dry seeding into a prepared seedbed (dry seeding). However, weed and nematode infestation are major problems, which can cause large yield losses in DSR. Other associated problems with DSR are increased incidences of blast disease crop lodging impaired kernel quality, increased panicle sterility and stagnant yields across the years. Based on the existing evidence, the present paper highlights the socio-economic impact of DSR, and problems associated with DSR. The study was conducted in Kurukshetra district of Haryana state. From this district, two blocks namely Thanesar and Pehowa were selected randomly. The data presented that constraints regarding marketing, technical guidance, financial constraints and miscellaneous constraints perceived by respondents were lack of marketing facilities in village, non-availability of extension officials for technical guidance, hesitation in investing money on DSR cultivation, depression is felt due to paddy appearance of direct seeded rice is not good in the first two months, ranked first constraint, respectively.