GROWTH AND YIELD OF RICE AS INFLUENCED BY IRRIGATION REGIMES AND WEED MANAGEMENT PRACTICES UNDER SRI METHOD OF RICE CULTIVATION

Any agronomic management practices that enhance the rice productivity coupled with efficient utilization of the critical inputs, offers a viable option for its sustainability.In this context a two-year field study was initiated at Mountain Research center for field crops Khudwani, SKUAST-Kashmir during two consecutives kharif seasons of 2017 and 2018 to study the effect of irrigation regimes and weed management practices on the productivity of rice.Intermittent irrigation reflected an increase in the number of panicles (8%) and grain yield by 4.75 % over conventional flooding.Among the weed management practices pre-emergence application of butachlor @1.5 kg ha -1 fb penoxsulam @ 22.5 g ha -1 20 DAT led to enhancement in yield attributes, yield and nutrient uptake, while minimizing the values for weed density (10 plants/m 2 ) and dry matter (20.4 g/m 2 ) compared to weed density of 98 plants/m 2 and the corresponding weed dry matter of 220 g/m 2 in weedy check.The weedy check plots registered lower values for uptake of N, P, K by, 54%, 53% and 52%, respectively compared to herbicide treatment of butachlor @1.5 kg ha -1 (3 DAT) fb penoxsulam @ 22.5 g ha -1 .The results suggest that the improvement in the productivity of rice crop can be realized to the tone of 4.5% by following the intermittent irrigation and 56 % by resorting to application of butachlor @1.5 kg ha -1 (3 DAT) fb penoxsulam @ 22.5 g ha -1 20 DAT.