Vol. 11, Special Issue 3 (2022)

Author(s):
Suthakar B, Thiyagarajan R, Mohankumar AP and Tajuddin A

Abstract:
Rice is the staple food for over two thirds of the population of India. India has the largest area under rice cultivation, occupying an area of 42.3 M ha with an annual production of 140 Mt and a productivity of 3 t/ha. SRI method of planting requires planting the seedlings on the grid which is difficult for the workers who do not normally follow proper spacing in planting and maintain seedling population per hill. To overcome such difficulties, a suitable transplanter should be developed for SRI method of cultivation. There are several self-propelled rice transplanters available commercially, which will reduce labour requirement drastically thereby reducing the cost of cultivation. Evaluation was carried out with different transplanters, different seedling rates and different hill to hill spacings. Hill to hill spacing adjustment did not have any influence on number of seedling per hill for all the three transplanters. Minimum of 3 seedlings per hill in both Hi-Tech and Yanmar transplanter was obtained with minimum seedling rate adustment. Seedling rate and hill to hill spacing did not have any influence on depth of planting in all three transplanters. The number of missing hills per sq.m was inversely proportional to the seedling rate. Minimum 2% missing hills and minimum buried hills of 1.04% were observed in Hi-tech transplanter. The seedling rate and hill to hill spacing did not have significant influence on floating hills. Hi-tech transplanter was on par with yanmar transplanter. In addition, capital investment on Hi-tech transplanter was lesser to yanmar transplanter. Hence, Hi-tech transplanter was found suitable for modification to SRI.