Mechanical Transplanting of Hybrid Rice for Sustainable Food Security

Now-a-days, different hybrid and high yielding rice varieties are available in Bangladesh which has higher yield potential over conventional high yielding varieties. Transplanting of hybrid rice variety with mechanical transplanter is a challenge to maintain the seedling density and precision planting. This study was conducted to determine the performance of rice transplanter in puddled and unpuddled soil conditions for hybrid rice variety and to compare the yield parameters with traditional manual transplanting in Boro-2018 at Bangladesh Agricultural University. Hybrid rice seed Moyna (HTM303) was used for transplanting. Seed rate per tray was maintained as 120 g and seedling per hill was adjusted to 2-3 nos. Transplanting was conducted by an ACI Daedong DP 480 model rice transplanter that possessed an effective field capacity, fuel consumption and efficiency of 0.17 ha/h, 4.61 l/ha and 70.20%, respectively in puddled soil condition whereas in unpuddled condition the parameters were 0.16 ha/h, 4.8 l/ha, 67.48%, respectively. Missing hill percentage were observed 6.3% with a floating hill of 5.46% in puddled soil whereas in unpuddled soil the parameters were found 6.1% and 7.36%, respectively. Plant heights were recorded as 14.79 cm and 15.72 cm in puddled and unpuddled soil, respectively at the day of transplanting and at the day of harvesting, plant heights were 91.66 cm and 86.19 cm, respectively with tiller per hill of 24 and 18 nos., respectively. The average panicle lengths of plants were found 25.11 cm and 23.61 cm in puddled and unpuddled soil, respectively where in manual transplanting, it was 23.17cm. The yields of mechanically transplanted rice in puddled and unpuddled soil conditions were 5.60 ton/ha and 5.21 ton/ha, respectively where manually transplanted field had a yield of 4.22 ton/ha. Results reveal that mechanical transplanting of hybrid rice was found possible in both puddled and unpuddled soil conditions than manual transplanting without compromising yield. [J Bangladesh Agril Univ 2020; 18(5.000): 887-893]