Effect of Wet Tillage Techniques on Weed and Yield of Transplanted Rice

The need to reduce application of weedicide or herbicide and reverse the decline of soil fertility in rice cultivation, an attempt has been made to conduct an experiment to see the effect of wet tillage techniques i.e. puddling operation on weed dynamics and yield of transplanted rice under animal farming system. Five different types of animal drawn puddling equipments were used for wet field preparation with two level of intensity. Results obtained from the study showed that the rotary blade puddler with three passes gave better performance to reduce weed population in transplanted rice. it also revealed that the increase in level of puddling decreased the regermination of weeds and exhibited poor weed population up to 25 days after transplanting. The minimum density of weeds was recorded under rotary blade puddler with three passes after 25 days of transplanting. Similar results were obtained at 40 and 60 DAT in next flush of weed emergence. Increased values of yield attributing characters were observed under three passes of puddling operation. Significant differences in yield of rice grain were found due to different puddling treatments. The highest grain yield of 48.79 q/ha was recorded under rotary blade puddler with puddler with three passes.