Influence of transplanting techniques and age of wash root type seedlings on planting attributes of paddy rice

Abstract

Globally, Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the most important crops. In India cultivars majorly use wash root type seedlings for rice production. The objective of the study was to assess the influence of transplanting techniques for transplanting wash root paddy seedlings. Two types of mechanical transplanting techniques (two-row hand cranked rice transplanter and tractor operated rice transplanter) were evaluated for three different age of nursery and compared with manual transplanting. The performances for each technique were evaluated in terms of average hill spacing, missing index, multiple index, damage seedlings, floating/buried hills, number of hills/m2, planting efficiency, actual field capacity, field efficiency, energy required and cost of transplanting. Acquired results revealed that the best combination observed was tractor operated rice transplanter and 25 days of seedlings (desirability—0.764). The tractor operated rice transplanter increases the labor productivity by 32.22 times and saved about 66.69% average transplanting cost compared to manual transplanting, whereas it increases the labor productivity by 2.57 times and saved average 35.68% transplanting cost compared to hand crank rice transplanter. Manual transplanting causes non-uniform transplanting, higher missing index and cost of transplanting. Tractor operated rice transplanter at 25 days of seedlings was the best combination for transplanting due its superior techno-economics results.