Optimization of planting methods and seed coating for enhanced rice seed yield and quality in mechanized farming

The demand for rice is predicted to rise by over 200 million tons by 2050 due to the rapidly growing population. India needs to step up its rice production because of the burgeoning population and decreasing land and other resources. Existing lower yield in rice caused by improper planting methods, particularly related to transplanting. This research was conducted to understand the effect of planting methods with coated and uncoated seeds to maximize seed yield and quality of rice. A field was raised in a randomized block design (RBD) on different treatments as coated and uncoated seeds with methods of sowings such as drone sowing, drum sowing, machine transplanting and manual transplanting with three replications. The observation on the number of hills m-2, number of tillers m-2, number of productive tillers m 2, number of grains panicle-1, 1000-grain weight, rice yield m-2 and quality indicators were gathered. The result indicates the maximum seed yield and productive tillers per hill recorded in drone seeding with coated seeds (59.71 q ha-1 and 31.75, respectively) whereas uncoated manual transplanting recorded 51.68 q ha-1 and 25.0 numbers, respectively in rice variety CO 55. Further, results on seed quality parameters revealed that machine transplanting yields higher production with the best seed quality compared to the seeds from drone sowing. It is concluded that drone sowing and machine transplanting are superior in seed yield and quality than conventional manual transplanting. Further research on enhancing the seed productivity through drone sowing on seeding density, population maintenance and productive tiller enhancement can be done.