PhilRice introduces controlled irrigation tech

MALOLOS CITY – Farmers in Luzon and other rain-starved parts of the country need not panic about a looming drought, the Nueva Ecija-based Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) said.

Diadem Gonzales, a senior science research specialist at PhilRice, said more farmers are adopting the controlled irrigation technology, which involves alternate wetting and drying of paddies by using only the basic amount of water.

The technology, he said, is in contrast to the traditional practice of farmers to continuously water the paddies.

Gonzales said the technology allows an equitable distribution of water even in areas far from the irrigation dams.

To determine the proper irrigation time, PhilRice promotes the use of a 25-centimeter long observation well made of bamboo or plastic buried in the paddies. When the soil inside the tube is removed, a farmer can estimate the water level even below the soil surface.

Farmers should only apply irrigation five centimeters above the soil surface when there is no more water in the tube or when soil moisture is becoming nil in the effective root zone (the depth of soil where the roots of the palay are still able to absorb water).

“With irrigation now becoming costly and scarce, it is important to develop schemes that use less water in irrigated lowland ricefields without reducing yields,” PhilRice executive director Dr. Leocadio Sebastian said.

The controlled irrigation technology, which the Los Baños-based International Rice Research Institute, National Irrigation Administration, local government units and PhilRice jointly developed, allows for supplemental irrigation or water conservation in farms with limited water supply.