Major Highlights

The survey was carried out in Mrigauliya of Morang, Bhokraha of Sunsari Kadmaha of Saptari, and Lahan of Siraha selecting twenty farmers from each district. The districts having potentiality of growing aerobic rice, and following alternate wetting and drying technology were prioritized for household survey using questionnaire with the given template from IRRI. Each cluster was characterized based on irrigation system, existing cropping pattern, method of irrigation and socioeconomic situation. The information includes socio-economic status of individual household, existing cultivated rice varieties, acceptable traits of varieties, negative traits of varieties, availability of water for the last five years, total area under transplanted condition and existing production. The potentiality of rice variety after completion of this project was assessed from the questionnaire like benefit of aerobic cultivation practices, alternate wetting and drying cultivation practices, problem associated with aerobic cultivation practices and future prediction of varietal yield in such condition.

The results of the household survey differed from place to place. In Siraha and Saptari districts, dominating community engaged in farming is Tharu (Chaudhary). The respondents from Sunsari and Morang districts were of mix communities.

About 80 percent surveyed areas had rainfed ecosystem. Kanchhi Masuli, Indian Sona Masuli and Hardinath-1 are popularly cultivated varieties in Siraha and Saptari districts whereas Ranjeet, Kanchhi Masuli and Hardinath-1 are cultivated in Sunsari and Morang districts. Sunsari and Morang were characterized as semi irrigated to rainfed whereas Siraha and Saptari were categorized under complete rainfed ecosystem. Kanchhi Masuli is the most popular variety grown for many years because it has good eating quality, cooking quality, drought tolerance traits and other abiotic stress. It is also popular for popped and beaten rice and thus, it fetches higher market price. Similarly, it fits well for the rice- wheat cropping pattern of Nepal. Its straw quality and medium plant height are acceptable characters. Thus, the variety has enough potentiality to be improved in future by introduction of blast resistance traits. Indian Ranjeet is second popular variety for the rainfed to irrigated ecosystem but it has poor straw quality. Among the newly developed varieties, Hardinath-1 and Tarahara-1 were found more popular. Besides that, Sukha Dhan-3 and Sukha Dhan-5 were also preferred varieties but they were recently pushed for cultivation. There is need to promote these varieties.

Declining trend of water availability for the last 5 years was information received from all surveyed sites. As a result, rice area production was reported as decreasing continuously. Went down of water table and lack of climate resilient short duration varieties for water short areas were reasons for decreasing area and production of rice in eastern terai region. Farmers demand the rice variety which could have potential to produce better yield under the water short condition. In addition, they are also getting convinced now to grow rice under the direct seeded condition. These information clearly indicate that the farmers will adopt aerobic rice, alternate wetting and drying technology benefitting in terms of productivity.