Demonstration on Machine Transplantation of Paddy at KVK, Wyra on 04-01-2021

As India is moving towards the 21st century, the burgeoning populations is increasing the need for increased production of paddy as it as the staple food for south Indians. Along with it, the shortage of labour and increased cost of cultivation is necessitating the need for introduction of machine transplantation. The transplanting of rice is done manually by using wash root seedlings. The manual transplantation requires more man days per hectare and is labour intensive compared to 3 to 4 man days per hectare using machine transplanter. The mechanical transplantation is cost effective and operation friendly. It helps in maintaining soil physical properties and is considered to be better from crop management and productivity. In spite of having an edge over the traditional transplanting, adoption rate of mechanical transplantation is low due to high initial investment and lack of knowledge on growing mat type nursery. The imparting of technical knowledge with timely availability and encouraging custom hiring may provide practical solutions for increasing the rice area under mechanical transplantation. In view of this, KVK, Wyra has organised a demonstration on machine transplanting in paddy in its field on 04.01.2021 for creating awareness and popularising the user-friendly technique. The meeting was participated by Dr. J. Hemantha Kumar, Programme Coordinator along Dr. V. Chaitanya, Dr. Jessie Suneetha W, Mrs. P. S. M. Phanisri and Dr. K. Ravi Kumar. Along with them 52 farmers participated and showed great interest in adopting this technology. The queries concerning the technology were cleared by the Programme Coordinator and scientists.