Integrated rice farming systems for improved growth, yield and pest reduction

Soil health and environmental degradation are some of the major challenges to the sustainable production of organic rice cultivation. The study utilized farming systems components like Azolla, fish and duck as nutrient sources in rice cultivation during late samba 2022-23 and 2023-24 at Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute, Aduthurai, Tamil Nadu. The experiments were conducted with eleven treatments replicated thrice in a randomized block design, the treatments included green manure, fish, Azolla, duck and liquid bio fertilizers and their combinations with nano urea foliar spray were compared with RDF. The results demonstrated a significant positive impact of integrating farming system components on rice growth and productivity. GM- Rice + fish + Azolla + duck (PSB+KSB+ZSB) along with nano urea foliar spray (0.4 %) recorded the maximum growth and physiological parameters over other treatments. Similar results were also observed in yield attributes of rice viz., the number of panicles (457 m-2), panicle length (31.26 cm), panicle weight (3.94 g), and filled grains panicle-1 (331.5). The higher grain (6.06 t ha-1), straw yield (7.81 t ha-1), rice equivalent yield (REY) (22.55 t ha-1), system productivity (61.79 kg ha-1 day-1), sustainable yield index (0.881) and relative production efficiency (440.3 %) of rice were recorded in GM- Rice + fish + Azolla + duck (PSB+KSB+ZSB) along with nano urea foliar spray (0.4 %). Additionally, lower pest incidences and higher insect pest control efficiency, richness, diversity and evenness indices were observed in green manure, Azolla, fish and duck-adopted treatments. The findings of experiments revealed that the inclusion of integrated farming system components significantly improved the yield and reduced pest incidences in rice.