Abstract
Bed planting, being a proven technology, can increase crop yields and save irrigation water to improve water productivity.
The experiments were conducted on three major crops including wheat, cotton and rice in three different cropping zones of
Punjab, Pakistan including rice-wheat (Khurrianwala), cotton-wheat (Mungi) and mixed (Killianwala) cropping zone during
three cropping seasons of 2008 to 2010. Wheat sown on beds showed significantly better results as compared to that under
flat sowing regarding germination rate (117.0/m2 vs 88.8/m2
), number of tillers (511.1/m2
vs 421.4/m2
) and dry matter weight
(13148 kg/ha vs 11230 kg/ha). Wheat yields under bed planting (4470 kg/ha) was 19.9% more than that under flat sowing
(3727 kg/ha). Cotton also showed significantly better performance, when compared with conventional sowing, regarding
plant height (125.3 cm vs 110.7 cm) and no of bolls per plant (42.8/plant vs 38.7/plant). Moreover, cotton yield was 12.1%
more under bed planting (3779 kg/ha) compared with that under conventional sowing (3371 kg/ha). The results of
experiments on rice, revealed that bed planting produced significantly higher number of tillers per square meter (32/m2
) and
grain yields (5512 kg/ha) than that under flat sowing (23.9/m2
and 4242 kg/ha), respectively. Moreover, bed planting
produced 29.9% more rice grain yield. The results indicated that wheat, cotton and rice sown under bed planting saved 42.6,
38.7 and 31.5% of irrigation water, respectively. Under bed planting, increase in water productivity was 108, 82 and 90.6%
for wheat, cotton and rice, respectively.
