Rice transplanting is the most common method of rice establishment in the lowland areas. As a traditional practice, in Nepal and
elsewhere, transplanting is done on well tilled and puddled soil. Puddling not only consumes much energy and time from the tilJage
point of view but also consumes a large quantity of the total water requirement in rice. This paper reports on a recent experiment that
is evaluating a new conservation agriculture rice crop establishment method. zero-till transplanted rice that is attempting side step the
submergence problem while keeping all the other CA traits in place. The main objectives of the experiment were to evaluate nonpuddled
rice transplanting technique with different tillage options and to observe effect of mulching on weed control and rice grain
yield. The experiment consisted of three treatments viz. manual rice transplanting on tilled plot, manual rice transplanting in power
tiller strip tilled plot and transplanting of rice with manual rice transplanter in zero-tilled plot The experiment was conducted in
2005 and 2006 rice season at National Wheat Research Program, Bhairahawa. Grain yield different among the treatments was highly
significant in both the years. First year, strip-tillage produced the highest mean grain yield of 5940 kglha followed by no-till
TPR(5564 kglha) and tractor land preparation (5207 kglha). All the treatments showed significantly higher grain yield than their
respective mulched treatment. Second year, no-till TPR produced the highest mean grain yield of 6321 kglha followed by strip-tilled
TPR (5910 kglha) and tractor land preparation TPR (5832 kg/ha). Like first year, grain yields in all the treatments were higher than
their respective mulched treatments. The yield differences in no-till TPR and strip-tilled TPR were significant but it was not
significant in tractor land preparation treatment

Rice transplanting is the most common method of rice establishment in the lowland areas. As a traditional practice, in Nepal and
elsewhere, transplanting is done on well tilled and puddled soil. Puddling not only consumes much energy and time from the tilJage
point of view but also consumes a large quantity of the total water requirement in rice. This paper reports on a recent experiment that
is evaluating a new conservation agriculture rice crop establishment method. zero-till transplanted rice that is attempting side step the
submergence problem while keeping all the other CA traits in place. The main objectives of the experiment were to evaluate nonpuddled
rice transplanting technique with different tillage options and to observe effect of mulching on weed control and rice grain
yield. The experiment consisted of three treatments viz. manual rice transplanting on tilled plot, manual rice transplanting in power
tiller strip tilled plot and transplanting of rice with manual rice transplanter in zero-tilled plot The experiment was conducted in
2005 and 2006 rice season at National Wheat Research Program, Bhairahawa. Grain yield different among the treatments was highly
significant in both the years. First year, strip-tillage produced the highest mean grain yield of 5940 kglha followed by no-till
TPR(5564 kglha) and tractor land preparation (5207 kglha). All the treatments showed significantly higher grain yield than their
respective mulched treatment. Second year, no-till TPR produced the highest mean grain yield of 6321 kglha followed by strip-tilled
TPR (5910 kglha) and tractor land preparation TPR (5832 kg/ha). Like first year, grain yields in all the treatments were higher than
their respective mulched treatments. The yield differences in no-till TPR and strip-tilled TPR were significant but it was not
significant in tractor land preparation treatment