Keywords: Cropping systems, field survey, nutrient use efficiency, rice diseases. "Rice (Oryza sativa L.) growing under irrigated (28%), rainfed (70%) and upland (2%) conditions is by far the most important staple for Myanmar�s 48 million people of which 75% directly depend on farming. Following the Land Utilisation and Tenancy Acts (1953) the number of farmers with large holdings has substantially decreased and today�s average farm size equals 2 ha with a paddy yield of merely 2.8 t ha-1. As a result of rising internal demand due to population increases, the quantity of rice Myanmar exported to neighbouring countries steadily declined despite increased efforts to intensify rice production by the introduction of early-maturing, N-responsive, non-photosensitive, semidwarf cultivars. Double and triple cropping systems of rice, as increasingly practised throughout Southeast Asia, require optimum control of water and nutrients both of which are major impediments to higher rice yields in Myanmar where annual average inputs of mineral fertilisers amount to only 17.8 kg ha-1..."