Planting of Rice

Planting

• Nursery establishment

• Preparing seed beds for a 500 m² field       
• 3 seed beds of 1 m wide and 6 m long (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Seed beds

• Spacing between beds= 40-50 cm to enable the farmer to pass while caring for the seedlings. (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Seed bed preparation and spacing

Leveling the seed beds using a wood stick (Figure 3)

Figure 3: Leveling the seed beds

• Fertilizer application (12.5 gr of NPK in every m² or two caps of a water bottle since one cap weights 6 gr ( Figure 5). The fertilizer is immediately mixed with the soil using own fingers. You can also use well decomposed manure ( Figure 6).

Figure 5                                                          Figure 6        

• Preparing rice seeds and fertilizers

• Seed selection and disinfection

• Seeds are selected through water soaking. Sunken seeds remain in the bottom while unfilled ones float to water level. These ones are removed ( Figure 7,8)
•  Sunken seeds are, then soaked in Kitazine solution for 24 hours. Kitazine is diluted as follows:  (Figure 9)

- I liter of water + 10 ml of Kitazine or 5 gr of Beam (5 caps of lemonade bottle)

- Needed seeds we need 25-30 per Hectare or 1.25 – 1.5 kg per 500m² (Standard plot).

• After soaking the seeds in the solution, they must be air-dried so that the solution can be removed from them ( this operation lasts for half a day) (Figure 10).
• Soaking the seeds in water for 48-72 hours. Soaking water must be changed daily (Figure 11).

                                                                                 

  Figure 7                          Figure 8                      Figure 9          Figure 10     Figure 11                   

• Covering the seeds from soaking for 24 hour in a cool place so that they can sprout (Figure 12 and 13).

    

  Figure 12                                                           Figure 13                       

Note:

Seed disinfection plays a role to control occurrence of seed-born disease such as Bakanae disease, blast disease, brown spot, and grain rot. 

• Planting seeds in the nursery

• Seed quantity and distribution

• Use 0.15 Kg - 0.2 Kg per are following the seed variety.

•  Sow the seeds evenly in the seed beds (Figure 14)

Figure 14: sowing the seeds in the nursery seedbeds

• Caring for the nursery after sowing the seeds in the seedbeds

• Covering the seedbeds with dry grass or banana leaves so that the soil can remain moist and preventing birds from eating the seeds (Figure 15).

Figure 15

Remove the mulch 4-5 days after sowing when the seeds are sprouting. Water between the seed beds must be at the same

• level as the seedbeds because it controls weeds and allows the seedbeds to maintain the moisture (Figure 16).

Figure 16

                                                                                                      

Transplantation

• Apply basal fertilizer: 70/m²
• Rice is transplanted 3 weeks after the nursery establishment
• Transplantation is done on parallel lines with 25cm of spacing between lines and hole

• Plant 2-3 seedlings in the hole.