Evaluation of Rice Cultivars for Performance Under Direct-seeded Rice System in the Foothills of Siruvani

Direct-seeded rice is a resource-efficient technique which bypass traditional transplanted rice thereby reducing labour and expenditure in cultivation. Var. Bhavani (medium duration) has been a widely cultivated rice variety in the Coimbatore region for decades due to its endurance and yield. The study was designed to replace the dominant variety in the local environment and compare the performance of several cultivars to the local check variety in a direct-seeded rice ecosystem. A field experiment was conducted during the Kharif season of 2024 at the South Farm of the Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Division of Agronomy, Coimbatore. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design and replicated three times. The treatments consisted of 15 rice cultivars: Check variety Bhavani (T1), TV 472 (T2), CR 1009 sub 1 (T3), Improved White Ponni (T4), TRY 3 (T5), TKM 13 (T6), CO 52 (T7), CO 56 (T8), CO 57 (T9), Karuppu Kavuni (T10), ADT 54 (T11), ADT 52 (T12), KKLR 2 (T13), BPT 5204 (T14), and Paiyur 1 (T15). Recorded the growth and yield attributes of different rice cultivars at various phenological stages, which were examined using analysis of variance. The results showed that the Check variety Bhavani (T1) produced a significantly higher number of tillers (23.10), number of productive tillers (17.03), and grain yield (4582 kg ha⁻¹), which were statistically on par with rice varieties TKM 13 and CR 1009 Sub 1 under evaluation, implying that these varieties could be a suitable substitute for Bhavani in the study area (Foot hills of Siruvani).