Abstract

An experiment was conducted at Varappur village, Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu to compare the performance of Improved TNAU drum seeder with SRI method of transplanting and conventional transplanting in rice cultivation. The row spacing adopted was 20 cm, 25 cm and 20 cm respectively for drum seeder, SRI method planting and conventional planting. The crop sown with drum seeder was matured 10 days earlier than the other methods. The number of tillers m -2 recorded was 452 in SRI planting, 405 in drum seeder sowing and 358 in conventional method. Regarding the water use efficiency water saving was up to 35 per cent in drum seeder than other methods because of early maturity of crop. The seed rate used was 8 kg ha -1 , 20 kg ha -1 and 40 kg ha -1 , respectively for SRI method of planting, drum seeder sowing and conventional method of planting. In the case of labour usage there was 90 per cent saving in the drum seeder method when compared to the other two methods. 75 per cent time saving observed in drum seeder sowing in comparison to the other two methods. The SRI method of planting recorded the highest grain yield (7.05 t ha-1 ) followed by (6.5 t ha-1 ) and conventional method (5.3 t ha -1 ).

Keywords: Rice,drum seeder, SRI, conventional transplanting.