impact of mulch on weed infestation in system of rice intensification (sri) farming

Impact of mulch on weed infestation in System

of Rice Intensification (SRI) farming

Aimrun Wayayoka,b, Mohd Amin Mohd Sooma,b, Khalina Abdana,

Umar Mohammeda,c, *

2nd International Conference on Agricultural and

Food Engineering, CAFEi2014

1-3 December 2014

E-mail address: [email protected]

OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

CURRENT SITUATION

OBJECTIVE

METHODOLOGY

RESULTS & DISCUSIONS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Rice (Orizasativa L.) is among the most vital foods in Asia

(e.g. Malaysia). But, Malaysia’s food security is hindered

because of the following reasons (CIIFAD 2014a):

1. Population growth

2. Rice cultivation in the same area of land

3. Reduction in number of farmers from rice farming

4. Declined of Malaysia’s self-sufficiency in the previous

decades from 89% to 63%

INTRODUCTION• System of rice intensification (SRI) is an innovative

methodology which increases rice yield by altering themanagement of soil, nutrients, plants and water (CIIFAD2014b).

• The components of SRI as stated by Satyanarayana etal. (2007), comprises of

1. Transplanting young seedling of less than 15 days old

2. Single seedling per hill

3. Wide planting geometry of 25 × 25cm or more

4. Moist soil condition at the vegetative stage.

INTRODUCTION

1. It increases rice grain yieldby at least 50 % (Lin etal. 2005)

2. Save seeds by at least 80-90% (Miyazato et al. 2010)

3. Save water by at least 50%(Satyanarayana et al. 2007)or 67% (Lazaro et al. 2004)

4. Reducing the cost of riceproduction (Tech 2004)

SRI has numerous advantages over the conventional system

of rice farming

SRI NON – SRI

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

1. Wide planting geometry ofsingle seedling (25 × 25 cmor more) per hill

2. Alternate wetting and dying(AWD) (Krupnik et al. 2012)

3. Aerobic or moist environment(Singh et al. 2012).

Weed infestation (Haden et al. 2007) due to :

SRI NON - SRI

• SRI yield reduction due to weed competition is up to

69.15% if there is no weed control attempted (Babar and

Velayutham 2012a)

• Water productivity which is one of the benefits of SRI

was significantly reduced up to 38% compare to weed

free plots (Krupnik et al. 2012) .

• Due to the influence of transpiration by the weeds in

the non-weeded plots.

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

• Water, nutrients, sunlight and carbon dioxide arethe main factors for which rice crops and weedscompete (Babar and Velayutham 2012a; Babar andVelayutham 2012b).

• SRI farming uses various methods of weed controlsuch as competitive rice cultivars, flooding (Hadenet al. 2007), herbicides application, hand weeding,mechanical weeding, mulching as well as integratedweed management (Latif et al. 2005;Randriamiharisoa 2002) with different degree ofsuccess

CURRENT SITUATION

Manual Weeders Motorize Weeders

Problem of the lateral vegetative part

Height

Width

CURRENT SITUATION

Mechanical weeding Organic mulching

Soil aeration

Weeding

Feeds

tunnelingWorm cast

Nutrients

Soil aeration

Weeding

Pulverizing

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

• To evaluate the influence of straw mat known as “SRImat” and commercialized black plastic (CBP) on weed growth and seedling behaviour in SRI farming

• This research aims to develop an effective and sustainable weed control strategy as well as seeking the possibility of minimizing moisture loss through transpiration by the weeds in SRI field.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Grinding

• The straw was first ground using Snova 3 horse power (HP) and 38,000 revolution per minute (RPM) super heavy duty commercial Blender (model SB2L)

Sieving• The ground straw was sieved through 19.54 mesh count

per inch to reduce the smaller particles

Plastic net

• Afterwards, 0.4 kg of the straw was measured, distributed uniformly in 1m2 plastic net, Followed by sewing using thread and needle

SRImat Fabrication


SRImat before perforating with a space of 5 × 5 cm2 for

transplanting of single seedling per hill


Hill space

• The SRImat and the CBP were perforated with a space of 25 cm2 for transplanting of single seedling per hill at 25 × 25 cm.

Design

• A randomized complete design (RCD) with five treatments and three replications were used in the experiments.

Plots • The size of each treatment plot was 1 by 1 m2.


• Treatment plots

T1- Plot without soil cover

T2- CBP with 0.19mm thickness



T5- SRImat with 2mm thickness

• The field was irrigated at thedepth of 2-3cm using AWD i.e.application of water to thefield after the appearance ofhairline cracked (Sinha andTalati 2007; Uphoff 1999) bythe soil surface.

Hairline cracks before applying

irrigation water using AWD


Base on weed class (sedges, grasses and broadleaves)

Counted and dried for 48 hours at 70 0C in an oven and weighted (Devasinghe et al. 2011).

To determine the weed density, dry weight, summed dominance ratio and weed control efficiency

Average number of tillers were computed from 4 hills m-2 from each plot

Data was collected at 24 DAT

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONSFig. 1. (a) Weed density ration under mulched and unmulched treatments

a

b b bc

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Wee

d d

ensi

ty r

ati

o (

%)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONSFig. 1(b) ) Total weed dry weight under mulched and unmulched

treatments

a

b b bb

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Wee

d d

ry w

eigh

t m

-1

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Weed density (WD)

• The application of SRImat was effective in the reduction of total weed density followed by CBP than the unmulched plots (Fig. 1a).

Weed dry weight (WDW)

• The application SRImat cover was effective in weed suppression on growth and development of weeds in SRI farming due to the significant lower total weed dry weight at 24 DAT (Fig. 1b).


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Sum

med

dom

inan

ce r

atio

m-1

(%)

Sedges Grasses Broadleaves

Fig. 2. (a) Summed dominance ratio based on weed classes as influenced

by soil cover treatments in SRI farming m-2

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONSFig. 2 (b) Weed control efficiency derived from weed dry weight ratio as

influenced by soil cover treatments.

c

b b aba

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Wee

d d

ry w

eigh

t ra

tio (

%)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONSSummed Dominance Ratio (SDR)

• The most abundant and dominant weed classes among all the treatments in the SRI field were sedges

• Due to the highest summed dominance ratio (ranging from T1 to T5; 81.04 %, 65.77 %, 74.43 %, 62.15 % and 92.50 % respectively) than both the grasses and broadleaves as shown in Fig. 2a.

Weed Control Efficiency (WCE)

• The SRImat soil cover indicated the best result (98.53%) among the all treatments, followed by the CBP treatments (T2; 93.19%, T3; 92.20%, and T4; 94.18%). The least weed control efficiency (0%) was shown by plots without soil cover (T1) (Fig. 2b).


Fig. 3(a) Seedling status at 24 DAT in

the SRI fieldSeedling behaviour

• The transplanted seedlings were able to grow well despite the changing of the environmental condition of the SRI field due to the influence of SRImat and CBP soil cover treatments as shown in Fig. 3a.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONSFig. 3(b) Average number of tillers hill-1 considering the weed control

efficiency at 24 DAT m-2.


Seedling behaviour

• The efficiency of the weed control treatments in T2, T3, T4 and T5 had made the number of tillers per hill to be significantly higher than T1 (Fig. 3b) .


Effectiveness of SRImat

• This may be due to the allelophatic influence of SRImat on progression and development of the associated weeds

• Due to the release of phenolic compound by rice straw in the soil which leads to suppression of weed growth (Chung et al., 2003; Devasinghe et al., 2011; El-Shahawy and Zydenbos, 2010)

CONCLUSION

• Due to the lowest weed density, weed density ratio, weed dry weight, and highest weed control efficiency 98.50%.

SRImat mulch was effective in weed control under SRI farming

• Based on summed dominance ratio in all the treatments

Sedges were the dominance weed class

• Due to less transpiration by the weeds

This study will improve the existing water saving in SRI farming

* Corresponding author. +2348065455601;

+60108385017; +60389464328;

fax: +6038-9466425.

Thank youAimrun Wayayoka,b, Mohd Amin Mohd Sooma,b,

Khalina Abdana, Umar Mohammeda,c, *

E-mail address: [email protected]