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Rice-the staple food-Land Preparation
Tertiary Land Preparation
What is the purpose of tertiary land preparation?
- Lowers the porosity and permeability of soil which destroys the soil structure.
- Forms a soil plow pan.
- Reduces loss of water from the soil through percolation.
What is the perfect timing?
- One day before sowing or planting.
What are the techniques to be used?
- Soil is flooded and then the tillage is performed (known as puddling).
- Several rounds of puddling is performed to mix fertilizer well.
- Then the soil is leveled well, to develop a good seedbed that is well suited for plant growth.
What are the important factors that need special attention?
- Puddling supports retention of water in the field for a considerable time
- Levelling ensures a healthy seedbed which provide uniform conditions to the crop.
Puddling
- Reduces water percolation rates in the soil.
- Require higher volume (20-40% of the total water requirement) of water.
- Keeping one day after puddling facilitates
- downward migration of the fine clay particles
- fill up the cracks and pores in the plow pan.
Levelling
- A prerequisite fora good water and crop management.
- Facilitates
- efficient crop establishment and care.
- irrigation of field with reduced time and water required.
- uniform distribution of water in the field.
- If the field is not leveled,
- water may stagnate in the soil depressions.
- comparatively higher places may get dry.
- may result
- patchy crop emergence
- poor early growth
- uneven fertilizer distribution
- increased weed populations