Rice Farming Guide India - Transplanting, Varieties & Yield

Transplanted paddy is raised from a nursery sown in mid-May to June, planted out at 25 to 35 days, and harvested 95 to 120 days later depending on the variety. In Punjab, recommended PAU varieties average about 30 quintals of paddy per acre (about 74 q/ha) with 8 kg of seed per acre for the nursery. Direct seeding and the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) are the two main alternatives when water or labour is short.

It is harvest and procurement time for kharif paddy. The MSP for 2026-27 is ₹2,441 per quintal for common paddy, ₹72 more than last year's ₹2,369, and government centres accept paddy with moisture up to 17%. Most of the guidance below comes from PAU's 2026 package for Punjab, TNAU's guide for Tamil Nadu, and the national MSP announcement; practices in Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and the coasts differ in variety and timing, so check your state university's calendar.

Three ways to establish the crop

Varieties

Choose by duration and by the crop that follows. PAU recommends short and medium-duration varieties in Punjab to save water and leave time to manage straw before wheat, and warns against Pusa 44, Peeli Pusa and Dogar Pusa, which use 15 to 20% more water and need at least two extra sprays.

In eastern and southern India, long-established varieties such as MTU 1010, Swarna and BPT 5204 (Samba Mahsuri) are still widely grown. Your state seed corporation and KVK can tell you which improved variety suits your field's depth of water, flood risk and season. Buy certified seed.

Nursery and transplanting (PAU practice)

• Seed: Float the seed in water and keep only the heavy seed that sinks. Treat with carbendazim + mancozeb at 3 g/kg.
• Nursery timing: In Punjab sow 20 May to 20 June depending on variety; transplant 20 June to 10 July (PR 126 no later than 15 July). Use 30 to 35 day seedlings for medium-duration varieties and 25 to 30 day for PR 126, because older seedlings lose yield.
• Nursery feed: For one acre's nursery, 12 to 15 tonnes of farmyard manure, 26 kg urea and 60 kg single superphosphate at sowing, plus zinc sulphate where needed. Yellowing new leaves usually respond to 0.5 to 1% ferrous sulphate sprays weekly.
• Planting: 20 x 15 cm (33 hills per sq m) for normal planting, 15 x 15 cm for late planting; 2 seedlings per hill, 2 to 3 cm deep. Dipping seedling roots in azospirillum biofertiliser for 45 minutes helps.

Fertiliser

• Split nitrogen into three equal parts at 7 days, 21 days and 42 days after transplanting (35 days for PR 126). Apply the second and third split on moist, not flooded, soil, and irrigate on the third day.
• Phosphorus and potash are for soils that test deficient; apply them before puddling. Skip phosphorus if the previous wheat crop received its full dose.
• Use a leaf colour chart to decide top-up urea: PAU applies 25 kg urea per acre only when 6 of 10 leaves are paler than shade 4, and stops at flowering.
• Zinc deficiency (rusty brown leaves, stunted seedlings): 25 kg zinc sulphate (21%) per acre at puddling if the last crop showed it. Excess nitrogen at flowering causes sterility and lodging.

Get soil-test-based advice through the Soil Health Card scheme and compare products on the fertilizers page.

Water management

• Keep water standing for only the first two weeks after transplanting. Afterwards irrigate about two days after the ponded water has soaked in (PAU), keeping depth below 10 cm. Do not let cracks open.
• PAU's tensiometer method, irrigating when tension reaches about 150 cm at 15 to 20 cm depth, saves water with no yield loss.
• Stop irrigating about a fortnight before maturity so that harvest and the next crop are not delayed.
• Laser levelling before sowing or transplanting improves water use. To cut pumping cost, see solar pumps and subsidy finder.

Pests and diseases

• Stem borer: TNAU gives thresholds of 2 egg masses per sq m, 10% dead hearts or 2% white ear; remove egg masses and use pheromone traps (12 per hectare) for monitoring.
• Brown planthopper: Avoid close planting and heavy nitrogen, leave a 30 cm gap every 2.5 m, and avoid synthetic pyrethroids and quinalphos in planthopper-prone fields because they cause resurgence (TNAU).
• Southern rice black-streaked dwarf virus (Punjab): Severely stunted plants with short, dark green, stiff leaves and unfilled grains, spread by the whitebacked planthopper. There is no cure, so PAU advises keeping bunds and channels weed-free, removing and deep-burying infected plants, and spraying recommended insecticides if the planthopper is seen in nursery or field.
• Bacterial blight: Choose varieties resistant to local pathotypes, as listed above.

Always use label-approved products at label dose and confirm with your KVK. More in the pests section.

Harvest, drying and moisture

• When to cut: PAU says harvest when the ears are nearly ripe and straw has turned yellow; delay until dead-ripe causes shattering and poorer milling. TNAU's test is when about 80% of panicles have turned straw-coloured, even if some leaves remain green.
• For the procurement centre: Moisture must not exceed 17%. If the combine delivers wet paddy, spread it thinly on a clean floor or tarpaulin and dry until it meets the norm.
• For storage at home: Sun-dry for about a week and store at about 12% moisture in bins or a heap inside a room (PAU).
• Straw: Do not burn it. PAU estimates that burning a tonne of paddy straw loses about 400 kg of organic carbon and 5.5 kg of nitrogen, and wheat can be sown straight after a combine fitted with a straw management system using a Happy Seeder.

Selling and MSP

The MSP for common paddy is ₹2,441 per quintal in 2026-27. The government's all-India average cost of production is ₹1,627 per quintal, which leaves a margin of ₹814 (50%). Paddy is bought at MSP at state-notified centres, mainly by state agencies and FCI, and Punjab and Haryana run the largest buying. Check the procurement dates, registration and mandi arrangements for your state; in many states registration on the state food department portal is needed. Live rates are on the rice mandi page and the full list is on the MSP page.

Arithmetic: gross is yield times ₹2,441; cost is yield times ₹1,627 (an all-India average that includes hired and family labour, inputs and rent); margin is the difference. Yields of 30 q/acre match the recommended Punjab varieties in trials; state averages are lower, and a low yield raises your cost per quintal. Consider PMFBY for weather risk and a Kisan Credit Card for cheap credit.

Sources

• PAU Package of Practices for Crops of Punjab, Kharif 2026 (rice)
• TNAU Crop Production Guide: Agriculture 2020 (rice, SRI, pests)
• TNAU Agritech Portal: Rice harvesting criteria
• Cabinet approves MSP for Kharif crops 2026-27 (text of the official release)