Documenting the process of local rice varieties production in two conventional and semi-mechanized planting methods in Mazandaran province

Documenting the production process in agriculture includes providing all information and activities that shows the course of production from seedbed preparation stage to harvest stage. The aim of this research was to document the process of rice production in Mazandaran province. In this research, all management operations performed from seedbed preparation stage to harvest stage in 150 paddy fields managed by two conventional and semi-mechanized methods were recorded for all cities of Mazandaran province in 2014. The results showed that farming operations from primary sowing and nursery preparing to harvest in two planting methods was started from the seconddecade of March and continued to the first decade of August. Range of machinery (40 to 60 hours) and fuel consumption (95 to 130 lit.ha-1) in the semi-mechanized method was more than the conventional method, but the use of labor and seed in the conventional method was higher than the semi-mechanized method. In both methods, about 92% of farmers used less than 50 kg.ha-1P2O5fertilizer. About 50% of farmers in the conventional method consumedfrom 46 to 92 kg.ha-1N fertilizer.The range of changes of the herbicide used in the conventional method was more than the semi-mechanized method. Average fungicide consumed in conventional and semi-mechanized methods was about 1 kg.ha-1 a.i. (one kg active ingredient per ha). With biological control of pests in conventional and semi-mechanized methods, the use of pesticide was decreased 13.14 and 12.64%, respectively. Average paddy yield in conventional and semi-mechanized methods was about 4100 and 4400 kg.ha-1, respectively, and paddy yield in the semi-mechanized method was more stable than the conventional method. Theresults of this research showed that semi-mechanized planting of rice resulted to decrease in consumption of 20 kg.ha-1seed and about 65% of labor compared to conventional method and increased paddy yield with further mechanization.