การทดสอบวิธีการตัดต้นข้าวในนาเกษตรกร

Abstract

Proportion of farmers practicing dry-seeded broadcasting rice in Northeast Thailand is increasing rapidly. Weed problem, however, is the main bottleneck of dry-seeded rice production technology. Farmers concern about this problem but the control, both in degree and methods employed, differ between provinces. The one among these methods is rice leaf cutting in which farmers in Roiet province have initiated for weed controlling and for improving rice grain yields of dry-seeded broadcasting rice. Farmers have practiced this method for years and claimed that by practicing this method rice grain yield has been improved substantially. For clarification and verification, the Ubon Ratchathani Rice Research Center has been carried out with 2 on-farm farmer participatory activities in 2007/2008 cropping season. The first activity was carried out at Ponsai district, Roiet province aiming to study and verify the leaf cutting method in details with farmer who initiated the method. The second activity was carried out in 17 farmer fields in the area of At Samart district, Roiet province and Mueang district, Ubon Ratchathani province aiming to verify the methods with farmers who had never practiced this method before. The two treatments, 1) rice leaf cutting in dry-seeded broadcasting rice and 2) normal farmer practices of dry-seeded broadcasting rice, were conducted and compared in 17 farmer fields in the area of At Samart district, Roiet province and Mueang district, Ubon Ratchathani province. The preliminary results showed that by practicing this method weed was suppressed substantially and as a result, on average, rice grain yield was improved by 5 percent over no-cutting treatment. Moreover the reflections from farmer on leaf cutting method are highly positive.