Performance of Direct Seeded Rice by using Seed cum Fertidrill in Vizianagaram District of Andhra Pradesh

Manual transplanting is the most popular method of crop establishment in rice growing areas in Vizianagaram district; it requires more number of labour leads to increase in the cost of cultivation and results in delayed transplanting. Direct seeding with the help of seed drill avoids raising of nursery, pulling and transplanting due to which labour requirement is reduced. District Agricultural Advisory and Transfer of Technology Centre (DAATTC), Vizianagaram, conducted ten front line demonstrations for three consecutive years during kharif 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14. The results revealed that direct seeded rice with ferticum seed drill recorded significantly more number of productive tillers hill-1 (11.10) and number of grains panicle-1 (136.7) than manual transplanting i.e. 9.87 and 129, respectively. The average grain yield in seed cum fertidrill method was 6.02 tonnes ha-1 as compared to 5.63 tonnes ha-1 in case of manual transplanting. The increase in grain yield of direct seeddrill sown rice was 6.9 percent compared to transplanted rice. The cost of cultivation was low (Rs. 30,369 ha-1) in direct seeded with seeddrill method than manually transplanted rice (Rs.35,454 ha-1). The average benefit cost ratio was more with ferticum seed drill (2.07) than manual transplanting (1.65).