Rice

Crop Establishment

Transplanted Rice

• After preparing the main field transplanting should be done with proper age of seedlings.
• In case of short duration varieties, the seedlings should be uprooted from the nursery beds for transplanting, when it is three to four weeks old.
• In case of medium and long duration varieties, four to five weeks old seedlings should be transplanted.
• Always healthy seedlings should be used for transplanting at the four to five leaf stage or when they are about 15-20 cms high.
• As far as possible, delayed transplanting should be avoided because it leads to poor tillerings, early flowering of the main tillers and resulting in reduction in yield.
• In alkaline soils aged seedlings of 45 days old should be transplanted because old seedlings establish better than young seedlings of 25 days age or so.

Spacing and number of seedlings per hill

• For Jaya, Sona, Vani, Prakash, IR20, Vikram and Pragathi varieties 2 to 3 seedlings are planted per hill with 20 cm row spacing and 10 cm apart.
• If row spacing is not followed maintain 50 hills/sq.m.
• Madhu, Pushpa and in Mangala varieties requires 67 hills/sq.m.
• The use of more seedlings per hill, besides not being any additional advantage, involves an extra expense on seedlings.
• In case of transplanting with old seedlings, the number of seedlings per hill can be increased.

Depth of Planting and Directions of Rows

• The seedlings should be transplanted at 2 to 3 cm depth.
• Shallow planting gives better yields.
• The deeper planting results in an increased height of the plants besides delays and inhibits tillering.
• The crop planted with rows running in the north-south direction generally gives better yield particularly in rabi season. The adoption of this practice is worthwhile, since it does not involve any extra expenditure.

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Direct Seeded Rice

• The success of the direct seeded rice depends entirely on the monsoon rains, besides proper stand of crop.
• If sowing is done in a properly prepared land, proper stand of crop can be achieved.
• A field with fine tilth facilitates the seed to come in contact with the soil moisture after drilling and enables the seed to germinate quickly and uniformly.
• Thus, an ideal preparation of the land will help to achieve a uniform stand, facilitate weeding and fertilizer practices.
• Therefore, with number of ploughings of the field and timely sowing, the direct seeded crop generally gives better yield.

Different Methods of Seeding

• Seeding is done in three different ways - viz. (i) drilling i.e. sowing in the furrow behind a plough, (ii) dibbling and (iii) broadcasting.
• In the light soils, which generally come into conditions quickly, any method can be adopted.
• Seeding with drilling method has got a greater advantage over other methods, because of the uniformity of the stand and the control of the population of the plants per unit area.
• Heavy soils, which do not come in conditions quickly, other methods except broadcasting are not feasible.
• It has been found that drilling or dibbling always gives considerably better yields than broadcasting system.

Broadcasting Sprouted Seeds in Puddled Land

• This method is adopted in an area where agricultural labourers are not easily available for transplanting or some time labourers are very expensive.
• In this method field is prepared and puddled just like in the case of transplanting. About 100 kg seed is required for one-hectare area.
• In the puddled field sprouted seeds with radical length of one to two millimeter are uniformly broadcast by hand.

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