Influence of different methods of rice (Oryzae sativa.l) cultivation –SRI vs NTP on microbes, soil health and grainyeild

System of Rice Intensification (SRI) developed in Madagascar, a systems approach to increasing rice productivity with less reliance on expensive external inputs, is gaining momentum all over the world including India. IIRR has conducted a long term experiments in sandy clay loam soils (2008-09 to 2010-11) to compare the organic and inorganic sources of nutrients for its productivity and soil health in SRI vs Best Management Practice (BMP) of Normal puddled Transplanted rice. The superior performance of SRI with higher microbial biomass corbon (17.2 %) coupled with higher dehydrogenase activity (ug TPFg-1soil 24h-1) with SRI (182) as compared to BMP indicating soil health improvement. SRI method with organic and inorganic nutrient application yielded 15.66 to 22.76 %mean higher grain yield in wet and dry seasons respectively as compared to BMP indicating a major factor contributing to positive SRI crop results is that its practices (young seedling, wider spacing, inter cultivation with weeder, saturation of soil use of organics) respectively taken together, create conditions in which beneficial microbes prosper due to well aeration and improves the soil health.