Raising of Farm Friendly Mat Nursery for Machine Transplanting of Rice

Mechanized rice cultivation can play a vital role in transforming rice production. In the context of labour shortage and growing commercialization of agriculture, mechanization is very important for ensuring timeliness and precision of operation. Mechanized transplanting is a key link to the entire mechanization of paddy cultivation. However, lack of farmer adoptable mat nursery production technologies appears to be one of the major hurdles against the appropriate exploitation of transplanting machineries. The present study entitled “Raising of farm friendly mat nursery for machine transplanting of Rice” was carried out during 2018 at Rice Research Centre, Hyderabad with the objectives of standardization of production technology of mat nursery raising on sheet for mechanical transplanting and evaluation of efficiency of nursery technique under field condition. The nursery raising on polythene sheet with puddled soil is farmer adoptable, suitable for machine transplanting and its cost is cheaper compared to tray method.