What is the need of avoiding puddling in rice?
Puddling is wet tillage of soil in excessive water. It requires high amount of water, breaks the soil aggregates, reduces the percolation rate and soil become hard after drying. Once a puddled soil dries leading to development of cracks, and then water requirement increases many folds due to deep percolation through cracks. We can have rice in unpuddled soils without any adverse effect in yield either by direct drilling or transplanting.
