High Yielding Varieties of Rice and LandAYater Management

Abstract

Around 90% of 1.8 million metric tons of milled rice consumed by an approximate population of 20 million Sri Lankans are produced from 0.73 million hectares of rice lands scattered in different agro-ecologies of Sri Lanka. The majority of rice lands have assured water supply through major and minor irrigation schemes. The rainfed fluvial lands in the dry and intermediate zones are frequently subjected to moisture stress but the irrigated/phreatic, phreatic and fluxial rice lands in the wet zone are either favorably rainfed or subjected to excess of water. The gain in popularity of semi-dwarf short duration rice varieties during the past three decades indicates the fulfillment of the requirement of more stable, high yielding paddies for water economy. Innovative water saving options like aerobic rice culture are being investigated for water economy in the future. Among other options of economizing water use in rice are soil and water conservation, containing waste and spillage of water, use of alternate weed control strategies for standing water, crop requirement based irrigation, and maximal use of rain water to save irrigation options for supplementary purposes. Future of rice culture depends on culmination of all or many of these options for water economy.