Check your field

Dhan Bondhu — Bengali for "friend of the rice paddy" — is built entirely around one farming technique: Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD).

What is Alternate Wetting and Drying?

AWD is a simple, low-cost way of irrigating rice: instead of keeping the field continuously flooded, the water is allowed to drain and the soil to dry down to about 15cm below the surface before re-flooding. Farmers traditionally track this with a perforated field tube (a "pani pipe") pushed into the soil, which lets them see the water level and know exactly when it's time to irrigate again. This website's recommendation does the same job, estimated from weather data instead of a physical tube.

Save water and cut costs

AWD reduces water use in rice production by about 30% compared to continuous flooding — fewer pumping hours or less canal water drawn, which lowers costs without needing to change variety, spacing, or fertilizer.

Without sacrificing yield

Done correctly, the water savings come at no yield cost. The key caveat — also built into this tool's recommendations — is that the field must stay flooded during drought-sensitive stages, particularly establishment right after transplanting and the flowering window, when drying the soil would hurt the crop.

Good for the climate

Continuously flooded paddies are a major source of methane, produced by bacteria that thrive in waterlogged soil. The dry phases in AWD inhibit those methane-producing bacteria, cutting methane emissions by an estimated 30–70% — making AWD one of the simplest available tools for reducing rice's climate footprint alongside its water and cost savings.

Source: IRRI – GHG Mitigation Technologies: Alternate Wetting and Drying