Iran

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Progress and Activities

2008 SRI Report for Iran
Bahman Amiri Larijani, head of the agronomy department at the Haraz Technology Development and Extension Center in Amol, near the Caspian Sea, has sent in a report (with photos) from the 2008 trials both on-station and in farmers' fields. Average SRI yield advantage has been 60% thus far. The three years of on-farm trials have shown a 64% advantage for SRI methods, 6 tons/ha vs. 3.65 tons, using less than 2/3 as much water as usual. On-station trials using chicken manure plus NPK fertilizer gave an average yield of 7 tons/ha. Larijani's colleague, Mr. H. Aghagolzadeh, has designed the first rotary weeders in Iran that can be used with SRI (see photos at left and right; click on the photos to see larger images).

2007 Trials Confirm Yield Benefits of SRI
Bahman Amiri Larijani, head of the Agronomy Department of the Haraz Technology Development and Extension Center at Amol near the Caspian Sea, has sent in a report (436 kb) on the trials conducted this past season on-station and on nearby farmers' fields, evaluating the impact of SRI practices on a favored local variety (Tarom), an improved variety, and a hybrid. The comparisons with conventional methods are reported as follows: Local variety yield was increased from 3.6 to 5.8 t/ha; the improved variety yield was increased from 6.1 to 9.8 t/ha; and the hybrid rice yield was increased from 7.2 to 10.8 t/ha. The average increase was 56.2%, with reduction in inputs of water and chemical fertilizer.

2006 Update
Bahman Amiri Larijani, head of the agronomy group at the HARAZ Technology Development and Extension Center in Amol, has evaluated SRI trials in the rice-growing province of Mazandaran near the Caspian Sea (see report, 430 KB pdf). SRI research which started in 2005 on a 2 ha paddy field near the Caspian Sea continued thisyear with field experimental plots and demonstration fields (click on photos of the experiments at right and left to enlarge).Evaluation was done with a traditional variety (Tarom) that has high-quality grain and a good market price but which is generally low-yielding. The yield on farmers' fields with conventional methods was 3.65 t/ha vs. 6.08 t/ha with SRI methods.

At the Amol research station, 12 different treatments were evaluated with different combinations of plant spacing and fertilizer treatment, together with other SRI methods. Highest yield, 7.03 t/ha, was with spacing of 25x25 cm and a combination of chemical fertilizer and chicken manure. The average yield for three spacings (25x25, 30x30 and 40x40 cm) was 5.18 t/ha with chemical fertilizer, 6.12 t/ha with chicken manure, and 6.07 t/ha with a combination of both.

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