Development of resource-saving technologies for rice cultivation on rice irrigation systems in the Krasnodar Territory

Abstract

According to the studies carried out by the US Geological Survey (USGS) under the project GFSAD30, Russia ranks fourth in the world in the number of fertile lands. However, today there are some problems that “slow down” the development of the Russia’s agricultural sector, including the rice-planting complex. One of the main problems of the Russian agro-industrial complex is unsustainable environmental management, which leads to inefficiency and sometimes loss of agricultural production. This is caused by the “rigidity” of the legal framework, the reluctance or inability of the economy to switch to new resourcesaving technologies, as well as the fear of partially or completely losing the crop when switching to new technologies. For the “soft” transition of the economy to new resource-saving technologies, we propose a resource-saving technology for cultivating rice on underground drip irrigation under mulch film on rice irrigation systems, the introduction of which proved its effectiveness, as well as the relevance of our study. The efficiency of proposed resource-saving technology of rice cultivation on drip irrigation is expressed in the increase of profitability of rice production by 26%, reduction of irrigation norm by more than 5 times, labor intensity of rice production by 42% and material costs by 24%. The proposed technology not only reduced the anthropogenic load, but also improved the land reclamation condition, including the situation in the rice irrigation ecosystem. Further development of drip technologies in the rice sector of Russia will allow developing fundamentally new, ecological-reclamative, balanced rice crop rotation with the inclusion of vegetable and cucurbits crops. The proposed technology will provide an opportunity to cultivate rice outside rice irrigation systems on previously rich lands, which will give agro-industrial workers new opportunities and prospects in rice production.