Planting patterns

There are different patterns of planting which are:

a) square planting: Square arrangement of planting is more efficient in utilization of light, water and nutrients available to the individual plant. In wheat decreasing inter-row spacing below the standard 15-20 cm i.e. reducing the rectangularity generally increase yield slightly. In crops like tobacco, inter cultivation in both direction is possible in square planting and helps in effective weed control.

But square planting is not adventitious in all crops. For example, ground nut sown with 30 x 10 cm (3.33 lakh plants/ha) gives higher yield than with same amount of population by square planting.

b) Rectangular planting: Sowing the crop with seed drill is standard practice. Wider inter-row spacing and closer intra-row spacing is very common for most of the crops and this practice is called rectangular planting. This rectangular practice is mainly adopter to facilitate intercultivation. Sometimes only inter-row spacing is maintained and inter-row spacing is not followed strictly and seeds are sown continuously or closely i.e. plant to plant space is continuous.

c) Miscellaneous planting pattern: Crops are sown with seed drills in two direction to accommodate more number of plants and mainly to reduce weed population. The important practices are:

i) Skip row planting: Crops like rice, fingermillet are transplanted at the rate of 2-3 seedlings per hill. Transplanting is done either in rows or randomly. Skipping of every alternate row is known as skip row planting.

ii) Paired-row planting: When one row is skipped and the required population is adjusted by decreasing intra-row spacing, this method of planting is known as paired-row planting. It is generally done to introduce intercrop.

5) Gap filling and resowing

Plant population is maintained by gap filling. It is more useful in long duration and widely spaced crops.

Resowing: In most environments if the stand reduction is over 50% seeds to be replanted.

6) Thinning

Thinning is done to obtain optimum plant population by removing excess population. In certain situation where germination and emergence is a problem, high seed rate is used. During favourable season this gives very high population and if thinning is not done, results in weak seedlings due to overcrowding. Low yields are obtained due to severed competition. Barren plants are also observed under excess population.

7) Seed rate

The required number of plants per unit area is decided by calculating the seed rate. The seed rate depends on spacing, test weight (1000 seed weight) and germination percentage.