1College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, OUAT, Bhubaneswar.
2Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Technology, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand.
*E-mail: biju1964@rediffmail.com
A study on the influence of the seedling mat characteristics and operating speed was carried out in the laboratory with a newly introduced Chinese make 8-rows self-propelled rice transplanter. It was found that seedling density and moisture content have significant effect on the seedling per hill and age of the seedling. The missing hill was not due to the transplanter but due to the non-uniformity of seedling in the mat. The mechanical damage increased with speed but was more pronounced with lower age of seedling. For better performance of the transplanter in terms of number of seedlings, missing hills and mechanical damage to the seedlings, the optimum seedling density, mat moisture content and age of seedlings should be 2.65 seedling/cm2 (110 g/mat of seed), 20–25%, 30 days respectively to reduce mechanical damage at the operating speed of 1.88 kmph.
Rice transplanting, transplanters, seedling transplantation, rice machinery
