Biography:
The growing population, changing climatic conditions and competition for water from other sectors urge efficient irrigation practices to save a significant quantity of water and reduce water footprints of rice along with improvement of productivity. Considering the management factors, an experimental study was carried out with IR-36 rice cultivar for productivity and consumptive water footprints in the experimental farm of Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India under conventional (CON) and system of rice intensification (SRI) irrigation practices. The APSIM-Oryza model was used to evaluate agro-adaptation strategy under future climatic conditions for the study area. For future climatic projections, the HadGEM3-RA provided daily meteorological data for RCP4.5 and 8.5 were considered. The climate projection analysis was carried out under these RCPs using bias-corrected (by quantile mapping method) climate data of future period i.e. 2040s and 2080s. Overall, the total water input for SRI was significantly (p< 0.05) reduced by 18-21% as compared to CON. The ETC was reduced by 1% under SRI as compared to CON. Rice yield in SRI was found to be 20-30% higher (p< 0.05) in comparison with CON. Water footprints were reduced by 18-29% (p< 0.05) under SRI as compared to CON. The future climate change projections up to 2080s for the study site indicated that the SRI with early transplanting was capable of increasing yield significantly (p< 0.05) by 20-30%, with substantially (p< 0.05) reduced consumptive water footprints of 18-26% as compared to CON under existing transplanting date. Hence, the SRI with early transplanting was recommended to be better practice for IR-36 in the present study area.
Title : Productivity of rice under changing climatic conditions