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SRI: step-by-step guide


Photo: Jim Holmes/OxfamAUS

In countries like Cambodia, the conventional method of rice planting is aerial spreading, where farmers spread a lot of rice seeds into a rice paddy. Under the SRI technique:

  1. Good rice seed is selected by placing it in water mixed with soil — the healthy seed sinks, while the unhealthy seed floats
  2. The seeds are germinated in nursery beds and raised to seedlings. When the seedlings are about 8–12 days old, they are transplanted into the rice fields (as opposed to 15–30 days old under the conventional method)
  3. The seedlings are planted 'one-for-one' (ie, planting one seedling singly instead of clumps of three to six seedlings under the conventional method to avoid root competition) and are widely spaced (about 25cm–30cm apart) in either a straight line or square pattern
  4. A transplanted single stem then splits into as many as eight shoots, each shoot carrying between 200–300 husks
  5. The fields are hand-weeded regularly, starting around 10–12 days after transplanting and then another four to five times (around every ten days) until the canopy closes. (Under the conventional method, pre-emergent herbicides, early hand weeding and early flooding are combined to control weeds)
  6. The soil is kept moist, but not continually saturated or flooded (as during the conventional method) during the vegetative growth stage. A thin layer of water (1–2cm) is then maintained on the field during the flowering and grain-filling stage and then drained about 10–15 days before harvest
  7. Large amounts of compost or other organic materials are used to provide nutrients (whereas chemical fertilisers are mostly used with the conventional method)

Information sourced from the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development (CIIFAD).