Abstract

                                In the districts of Chingleput, North Arcot and Chittoor, the bulk of the area under paddy is sown under semi-dry conditions. The sowing is done in July-August, usually by means of a gorru, after the onset of the South West monsoon. The crop makes slow progress with the limited soil moisture, but in a normal season the South- West monsoon showers are sufficient to maintain the stand of the crop in the early stages of growth. After the onset of the North-East monsoon when the tanks get filled, this, "semi-dry" paddy is irrigated from the tanks and thereafter the crop is treated in the same way as a wet crop of paddy. By this system of cultivation an early sowing of the crop is rendered possible, which otherwise would have to await the onset of the North-East monsoon. The one drawback in this system is the difficulty in applying green manure to the crop. The semi-dry area is usually manured with what little farm-yard manure is available, which does not exceed five cartloads per acre. Considering the large area under semi-dry paddy a practical method of green manuring the area has to be improvised. Several methods like ploughing in green manure brought from outside a month before sowing and at the time of sowing were tried. The results were not satisfactory, as the decay and disintegration of the green matter were not complete for want of the requisite moisture and when the green leaves were applied 30 days before sowing the undecomposed matter impeded ploughing and sowing operations. Sowing the green manure seeds along with paddy, pulling out and trampling in the green manure crop about two months after sowing when the crop was irrigated, however, gave better results. The following experiment was conducted from 1946-47 to test the efficacy of this method of green manuring semi-dry paddy.

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