Orderly Mechanical Seedling-Throwing: An Efficient and High Yielding Establishment Method for Rice Production

Abstract

Developing an efficient and high-yielding mechanical rice establishment system is one of the most important approaches for intensive and large-scale rice production. Recently, an orderly mechanical rice seedling throwing system (OMST) was successfully developed; however, the performance of this system is unknown. In the present study, a two-year field experiment was carried out in a split-plot design with three establishment methods arranged in the main plots, and two elite rice cultivars arranged in the sub-plots. The grain yield and growth-related traits were then determined. The results showed that the grain yield of OMST was significantly higher than manual seedling throwing, and was equivalent to that of manual transplanting, which was mainly due to the variances in panicle number and total spikelet number. Further analysis suggested that the orderly mechanical seedling throwing takes advantage of higher biomass accumulation after heading, increased leaf area index and decreased leaf senescence rate against manual seedling throwing, and more tillers and biomass accumulation at vegetative growth stage as compared to manual transplanting. The present study showed that the OMST is an efficient and high-yielding rice establishment method that may be a promising option to replace traditional manual seedling throwing in rice production.