Assessment of different crop establishment methods and age of seedlings of rice on productivity and profitability of rice-pea paira cropping system

The field experiment was carried out at Regional Research and Technology Transfer Station, Bhawanipatna, Kalahandi under Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar to assess the performance of the different crop establishment methods and age of seedlings on productivity and profitability of rice under rice-pea paira cropping system during 2019-20 and 2020-21. The experiment comprised of three crop establishment methods i.e. mechanical transplanting in puddled soil (MTP), mechanical transplanting in non-puddled soil (MTNP) and manual line transplanting in puddled soil (TP) in main plots and four age of seedlings viz., 14,17,20 and 23 days in sub-plots laid out in split-plot design with three replications. Chickpea was sown as paira crop 15 days prior to the harvest of paddy. The rice equivalent yield (REY) of 7143 kg ha-1 and gross return, net return and return rupee-1 invested was maximum in MTNP with younger seedlings of 14 days old. Among crop establishment methods, higher REY was obtained in mechanical transplanting in non-puddled soil (6486 kg ha-1) which was at par with mechanical transplanting in puddled soil (6448kg ha-1) and better than manual transplanting in puddled soil (5753 kg ha-1) method. Among the four age of seedlings, REY was higher in 14 days old seedlings (6766 kg ha-1) which was at par with 17 days seedlings (4753 kg ha-1) but significantly different from 20 days old seedlings (6030 kg ha-1) and 23 days old seedlings (5645 kgha-1). Net return and return rupee-1 invested were higher in mechanical transplanting in non-puddled soil (Rs.68575 ha-1 and 2.45) which was at par with mechanical transplanting in puddled soil (Rs.66137 ha-1 and 2.35).