Rice Production Course

Water-Saving Irrigation in Rice

R. Lampayan
CSWS, IRRI
 Content

• Introduction: the water crisis

• Water-saving technologies
• Practical experiences
• Sustainability issues
• Conclusions

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Rice grows under lowland conditions:
puddled soil, permanently flooded

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 Rice and water
• 75% of rice is irrigated (75 m ha)
• Rice requires much water: 3000-5000 l kg-1 rice
• Irrigated areas consume 80% of all fresh water used;
Asia: > 50% of this is for rice

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Pressure to produce more food (rice) is getting
greater because of ever increasing population

But also:
More people want
• more industry
• more drinking water
• more cities
• more swimming pools
• more….

=> Water is getting scarce and expensive

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Is this the future for rice production…….
?

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 Competition, some examples in rice areas….
Beijing: 2001: ban on flooded rice

ZIS (160,000 ha)-city, industry

ZIS: Irrigation
Other Uses
100
90
80

Sectoral Share
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
YEAR

Ganges river: India-Bangladesh

Cauvery river: Karnataka-Tamil Nadu

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Reduced river flows

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 Tubewells and pumps for irrigation

70
60
50
40
India
30 China
20
10
0
1966 1995

India (2000): 5-6 million irrigation tubewells

N China (2001): 3-4 million irrigation tubewells
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Groundwater depletion

1-1.5 m/y

0.7 m/y

Arsenic!

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 Conclusion

Need to grow rice using less water in water-scarce

or water-costly areas

• Produce enough rice for growing population

• Decrease cost of rice production
• Save ‘little’ water in rice => free-up ‘much’ water
for irrigation elsewhere and for use by other
sectors (industry, cities, other crops)

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To mitigate the looming water crisis,

we need to

“Produce more rice with less water”

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Field water balance lowland rice

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 Water requirements in lowland rice
Daily Season (100 d)
mm d-1 mm
Land preparation 175-750
Evapotranspiration
- wet season 4-5 400-500
- dry season 6-7 600-700
Seepage & percolation
- heavy clays 1-5 100-500
- loamy/sandy soils 25-30 2500-3000
Total season : 675-4450 mm
Typical value : 1500 mm
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Water-saving measures
• Good puddling
• Good bund maintenance
• Land leveling
• Crack plowing
• Short land preparation phase
• Communal seed beds
• Efficient use of rainfall (cropping calendar)
• Direct wet seeding
• ……

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Water-saving irrigation technologies:
Reduce
seepage, percolation and evaporation

• Saturated soil culture

• Alternate wetting and drying
• Aerobic rice

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 60 Field water depths in
50 alternate wetting
Field water depth (mm)

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
transp. PI to complete
Early Late grain filling Maturity
recovery flowering
tillering tillering
Days after Transplanting

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 Continuously flooded

Alternate wetting and

Yield (t/ha) drying
10

0
TL99 TL00
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PR01
 Continuously flooded

Alternate wetting and

drying
Irrigation water (mm)
800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0
Tuanlin 1999 Tuanlin 2000 PhilRice 2001

Note: heavy clay soil with shallow groundwater (0-30 cm deep)

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Guimba 88-90 (Tabbal et al., 2002)
Silty clay loam, groundwater 70-200 cm
Yield (t/ha)

8
6
1988
4 1989
1990
2
0
500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500

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Total water (mm)
A fundamental approach to reducing
water requirements in rice?

Treat rice like any other (irrigated) crop:

No puddling, no standing water, aerobic soil

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 Upland rice
Aerobic soil
Breeding: Drought tolerant
Weed competitive
Adverse soil conditions
Low inputs (!)
=> Stable but low yields

Unfavorable uplands

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Hydrology field experiment Beijing, 2001:
Explore aerobic rice yield and irrigation water use

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 Total water input (mm)
1400
1200

1000
800

600
400

200
0
Flood W1 W2 W3 W4 W5
Water treatment (Rainfall)
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 Yield (t/ha)
9
8
7
6
5 Lowland
4 Aerobic 1
Aerobic 2
3
2
1
0
1394 644 577 586 519 469 Water (mm)
Flooded ---------------- Aerobic ------------------
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Practical experiences

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 Case study Tarlac & Nueva
Ecija:
Introducing alternate
wetting and drying to
farmers using shallow
or deep wells for irrigation

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 Monitoring inputs:
Irrigation water, seeds,
fertilizer, pesticides,
labor use, etc.

And outputs:
Grain yield and quality
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Irrigation water used (mm)

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Grain yield (t/ha)

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Comparison between farmers’ practice and alternate wetting
and drying (dry season 2001)

Alternate
Farmers’
Particulars wetting and Difference
practice
drying

Total water used*

(mm) 500 310 190

Pump O&M cost

($ ha-1) 112 69 43

Yield (t ha-1) 5.7 5.5 0.2

* From transplanting up to harvesting

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 Partial budget comparison ($ ha-1)

Farmers’ Alternate wetting

Particulars Savings
practice and drying

Gross benefits 944 911 -33

Variable irrigation cost 148 96 52

‘Net’ benefits 796 815 19

Comments irrigation manager and farmer community: can

irrigate 30% more area with same amount of water !!

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 Aerobic rice, Mato Grosso, Brasil
Guimarães and Stone, 2000

Rice production system Yield (kg ha-1)

Rice after 3 years soybeans 4,325
Rice after 1 years soybeans 2,577
Rice monocrop (5 years) 1,160

Fertilization 300 kg of 4-30-16 N,P,K at planting;

150 kg ammonia sulfateIRRI: Riceat 50Course
Production DAS
No more crop growth after tillering….

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Rep Treatment Variety Mean
V1 V2 V3 Irrigation
experiment
I W1 1.26 0.76 0.96 0.99
W2 0 0 0 0.00
W3 0 0 0 0.00 Varieties:
W4 0.33 0 0 0.11
V1 = Apo
II W1 4.14 4.69 3.07 3.97 V2 = Magat
W2 0 0 0 0.00
W3 0 0 0 0.00 V3 = PSB Rc 98
W4 0.47 0.68 1.11 0.75

III W1 3.52 4.29 3.93 3.91 Irrigation:

W2 0 0 0 0.00 W1=2/week
W3 0 0 0 0.00
W4 0.52 0.17 0 0.23 W2=1/week
W3=1/2 week
IV W1 3.97 5.68 4.87 4.84
W2 0 0 0 0.00
W3=variable
W3 0 0 0 0.00
W4 0.71 0 0 0.24

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 Conclusions tropical aerobic rice
Where are we after 2 years in the program?
1. Identified varieties with yield potential of 6 t ha-1, using
about half the water used in lowland rice (Apo, Magat,
UPLRI5, and more)
2. Rough management recommendations that can deliver
about 4.5 t ha-1 of the yield potential
3. Established a successful partnership to fully develop
the aerobic rice technology (IRRI, NIA, PhilRice and
farmers)
4. Under water scarcity: extremely urgent to develop
sustainable crop rotations (nematodes!)
5. We stand at a successful beginning
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 AWD, aerobic rice
“Target domain” Crack plowing
Compaction
Good puddling
……..
AWD
Yield Diversification Flooded
(nonrice crops) lowland

Aerobic
rice

Upland

Low High
Water availability
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