Rice farming: saving water through Alternate Wetting Drying (AWD) method, Indonesia

Abstract

Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) is a water-saving technology that lowland (paddy) rice farmers can apply to reduce their water use in irrigated fields. In AWD, irrigation water is applied to flood the field a certain number of days after the disappearance of ponded water.Hence, the field is alternately flooded and non-flooded. The number of days of non-flooded soil in AWD between irrigations can vary from 1 day to more than 10 days depending on the soil type. To implement alternate wetting and drying (AWD) method of rice field flooding, you will need a tube of 40 cm length and a measuring tape to measure water depth.