Evaluation of Integrated Farming of Rice and Duck on Rice Grain Yield in Gilan, Iran

Abstract

In order to evaluate integrated farming of rice and duck on rice grain yield, an experiment was performed on Oryza sativa L. in Gilan, Iran in 2013. This experiment was performed based on factorial split and it was also according to plan of randomized complete block (RCB) in three replications. In this experiment the main factor of duck was between two levels (by presence of duck and without presence of duck) and the minor factor was the factorial combination of weeding levels (weeding on the releasing day of ducks and not weeding on the releasing day of ducks); and also the planting spaces were 20×20 cm, 25×25 cm, 30×30 cm.The results of the analysis of variance show that the presence of duck in a rice field causes increasing in plant height, the number of grains per panicle, the number of filled grains per panicle, weight of thousands grains, harvest index (HI) and grain yield. In total, results and statistics show that using duck in rice fields causes increasing in grain yield and consequently it increases farmer’s income and also reduction of using agricultural pesticides and protecting the environment.

Keywords

• rice
• duck
• planting space
• weeding
• grain yield