System Of Rice Intensification

[RamdomChances]

I came across this when looking through Wiki the other day and though it might be of intrest

SRI was first proposed in 1983 when a drought prevented farmers from flooding their paddy fields. De Laulanie noticed that the rice plants had increased growth. Further observation revealed that having seeds planted too close together decreases their growth. Further work developed the main practices of SRI, leading to its main theoretical ideas [1]:

* rice fields should be kept moist but not flooded

* rice plants should be spaced widely apart

* rice seedlings should be transplanted quickly when young

Further changes in management from "conventional" practice allow the increased yield, with decreased seed and water consumption. Furthermore SRI achieves this without the use of special seeds or other farming equipment such as chemical fertilisers.

System of Rice Intensification

http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/pf/428360a_pf.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4200688.stm

It claims :-

With SRI there can be water savings of around 50%.

additional labor input -- between 25 and 50%

But since yield increases are 50 to 100%, and possibly by two or three times present levels

[chownah]

I've read alot on the internet about SRI (System of Rice Intensification). It is controversial. Some of the claims of yield increases seem to be exagerated. It has been tried in Thailand but did not increase yields...I'm not at all sure that the Thai group that tried it actually implemented it properly so I personally don't trust their results. I intend to try their techniques on a small plot and see how it goes but I'm not willing to adopt thier techniques across the board and do all my fields..I'm sceptical but want to try it. Many of their techniques have been used before so what they propose is not completely new like they would lead you to believe.

From my review of what I've found on the internet it seems that the early reports of huge yield improvements were always done by less scientific type people who were involved with orgainisations which were promoting the concept. More recent trials where scientific methods were used to compare SRI with more standard methods tend to show small improvements in yield or none at all. There is a vast number of researchers studying rice and how it is grown around the world so as time goes on the issues here will no doubt be fully understood. I started about 3 years ago thinking it was revolutionary but now I'm sceptical but still willing to give it a try since many of their practices have been shown to be viable regardless.

Chownah

[RamdomChances]

^ I had a feeling you might of heard of it before, I did read that the results were contrevercial. I did'nt go into too much depth on it as it's not really my field

[plachon]

I've seen SRI talked up a lot over the last few years but like Chownah, am highly sceptical about its supposed benefits. Especially in Thailand where the yield gain would have to be astronomical in the first year to persuade a farmer to change his present techniques, given that nearly every farmer I know is trying to reduce/minimise their labout inputs. hel_l, Thai farmers don't want to take more time in their rice fields but less and less............until they decide its not worth it and plant it up to eucalyptus or lose it to the local tao gae.

Having said that........there are some good aspects in SRI which can be adopted or adapted in Thailand, IF the farmer has sufficient labour and is willing to experiment. For example, the optimal spacing of seedlings during transplantation - fiddly in practice, but should boost yields.

[pnustedt]

Tks for posting this RC - I must admit that I'd never heard of SRI. However, my observation is that better cared for paddies do give better yields.

I also agree with Plachon that farmers want to spend less time in the fields, not more. It is proving more and more difficult to get people to do manual labour in rice fields. I believe that the way forward is more mechanisation of the process - to be paid for from the higher yields. SRI could be introduced as a part of process improvement.