CONTROLLED WATER SAVING METHOD FOR PADDY CULTIVATION – A CASE STUDY

Water is one of the essential requirements for plant and animal life, but then, our water resources are limited and insufficient to meet the needs for fast growing agrictulture, industry and other uses. Also ever growing population demands more food and other basic needs which we are facing shortages at present and likely to be extended even beyond 2000 A.D. The main aspect of water resources system is the economic usage of water. About 50 percent of the total water available for irrigation in our country is diverted to rice crop alone with the assumption that the water requirement of rice is very high, without any basis for this assumption. Out of this 50 percent water is consumed by rice, 60-70 percent quantity is lost by deep percolation and evaporation. Therefore, there is an urgent need for modifying the prevalent practice of keeping standing water in rice fields and adopting means to reduce these heavy losses from the fields due to flooding, so that the excess amount of water can be saved and it can be used for increasing the irrigation potential