Taking the climate risk out of transplanted and direct seeded rice: Insights from dynamic simulation in Eastern India

Abstract

Highlights Optimum rice transplanting date in EIGP to achieve high yield with low risk is up to 2 August for long duration variety and is up to 16 August for short duration variety. Late transplanting with old seedlings under farmer practice lead to low rice yields due to high drought risk but supplemental irrigation or short duration variety reduced the drought risk. Transplanting of appropriate aged seedling at onset of monsoon yields 1.8 t ha −1 as compared to farmer practice. There is high probability to meet required soil moisture conditions for DSR sowing during early June. Supplemental irrigation for DSR crop establishment and to meet crop demands during dry periods can result in 5.8 t ha −1 in May and June sowings.

Social-ecological analysis of timely rice planting in Eastern India

“…Attaining food security in the densely populated Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains—a global poverty hotspot—requires the negotiation of trade-offs between productivity, risk, and the ecological footprint of agriculture, a challenge further compounded by the impacts of climate change (Park et al 2018 ; Struik and Kuyper 2017 ; Ortiz et al 2008 ). Building agroecosystem resilience—i.e., the capacity to maintain core functions in the light of environmental and market shocks (Nystrom et al 2019 )—and thus maintaining high levels of crop productivity are often predicated on timely crop planting and harvesting (Singh et al 2019 ). Timely planting aligns crop cycles with favorable climate conditions resulting in higher and generally more stable yields.…”

“…Specifically, timely crop planting raises system productivity by (a) mitigating risks of yield losses caused by pushing crop growth into periods of sub-optimal or extreme weather conditions such as cold and heat waves, drought, or flooding; (b) increasing resource use efficiencies; and (c) allowing for more crops to be grown per year on the same land (Acharjee et al 2019 ). While several studies have analyzed optimal time windows for planting, agroecosystem characteristics and farmers’ decision processes that enhance or limit the potential to plant crops during optimal time windows have received less attention (Acharjee et al 2019 ; Singh et al 2019 ; Mingxia et al 2020 ).…”

“…But, erratic monsoon patterns increasingly cause both floods and droughts in close spatio-temporal proximity, threatening farmers’ productivity. Research over the last decades has shown that timely planting of both rice and wheat is one of the most important response options that farmers in the region have to build resilient agroecosystems amidst changing climate regimes (Keil et al 2019 ; Ortiz et al 2008 ; Singh et al 2019 ). At the system level of rice-wheat cropping patterns in South Asia, timely planting of rice facilitates the efficient use of monsoon season rainfall and, just as importantly, planting of wheat within the first 3 weeks of November.…”

“…At the system level of rice-wheat cropping patterns in South Asia, timely planting of rice facilitates the efficient use of monsoon season rainfall and, just as importantly, planting of wheat within the first 3 weeks of November. The latter assures higher yield potential by avoiding both season-long and terminal heat stress during grain filling (Singh et al 2019 ). Due to the cascading influence of rice management on subsequent crops like wheat in the annual rotation, our study focuses on rice planting.…”

“…Specifically, we studied how social-ecological characteristics differ across early, medium, and late rice planters. We worked on the assumption that timely planting means early planting in most cases, as indicated by overall yield benefits to the rice-wheat system (Ortiz et al 2008 ; Singh et al 2019 ). We present an approach in which we combine insights from two unique datasets, a detailed discussion-based dataset and a big picture survey.…”