Techno-Economic Performance of a Self-Propelled Rice Transplanter and Comparison with Hand Transplanting for Hybrid Rice Variety

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the techno-economic performance of a self-propelled four rows walking-type rice transplanter and
comparison with hand transplanting method in the paddy field. Mat type seedlings of a high-yielding rice variety namely Hybrid was used for
transplanting. In order to evaluate the performance of the rice transplaner, observations on planting depth, number of seedlings per hill, hill spacing,
number of missing, floating hills and costs of operation were recorded. The experiment was carried out in randomized complete block design with
four treatments, viz. hand transplanting ( ) T1 and rice transplanter (machine transplanting) at three seeding rates of 60 g per tray ( ) T2 , 80 g per
tray ( ) T3 and 100 g per tray ( ) T4 . The results indicated that the hill spacing in hand transplanting was measured to be 13.20 cm compared to the
average of 12.67 cm in rice transplanter. The number of seedlings per hill in rice transplanter increased from 1.7 to 2.8 as the seeding rate increased
from 60 to 100 g per tray. The missing hills decreased from 13.32 to 7.65 % with increasing seeding rate from 60 to 100 g per tray. The average
labor input in rice transplanter was 30 man h ha-1 compared to 126 man h ha-1 in hand transplanting. The total cost of transplanting in the treatments
of T2, T3 and T4 was decreased by 19.20, 22.44 and 25.70%, respectively as compared to hand transplanting.