The Impact of Using Improved Rice Crop Manager (RCM) on Rice (Oryza sativa) Production and Income

The use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in agriculture such as the Rice Crop Manager (RCM) has provided farmers crop nutrient management guidelines for irrigated and rainfed lowland areas. The study aimed to evaluate the RCM and its enhanced calculation in low yielding areas to increase farmer’s harvest and income. It was conducted at Research Outreach Station (ROS) Magalang, which was situated in a lowland irrigated ecosystem. It started during the wet season 2019 up to dry season of 2020. The treatments were farmer’s practice (FP), Standard RCM (RCM1) and enhanced RCM recommendation (RCM2), which Random Complete Block was used as an experimental design. The results showed that highest application of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium was observed in FP during wet season, which was 31.6% higher than others. While, during the dry season RCM2 has the highest application at 128 kgs./ha of Nitrogen. Based on yield difference during wet season, RCM2 showed a significant yield increase with 4.36 MT/ha, it was 19% higher from FP and 14% from RCM1. While, yield during dry season RCM2 showed a significant yield increase with 5.82 MT/ha, it was 72% higher from FP and 2% from RCM1. With the result from yield also implied highest net income of 29,538 pesos a 69.4% Return on Investment (ROI) from RCM2 during wet season and 49,604 pesos a 106.23% ROI during dry season. Overall the application of RCM and its enhanced version had significantly increased the yield and income of a low yielding area