Introduction
- Seeding or sowing is an art of placing seeds in the soil to have good germination in the field.
Sowing methods
- Broadcasting:
- process of random scattering of seed on the surface of seedbeds. It can be done manually or mechanically both.
- Mechanical broadcasters are used for large-scale work. This machine scatters the seeds on the surface of the seedbed at controlled rates.
2.Dibbling:
- Dibbling is the process of placing and seeds in holes made in seedbed and covering them.
- The equipment used for dibbling is called dibbler.
- It is a conical instrument used to make proper holes in the field.
- Small hand dibblers are made with several conical projections made in a frame.
- Drilling
- Drilling consists of dropping the seeds in furrow lines in a continuous flow and covering them with soil.
- Drilling can be done by (1) Sowing behind the plough (2) Bullock drawn seed drills (3) Tractor drawn seed drills.
- Seed dropping behind the plough
- Sowing behind the plough can be done by a device known as malobansa.
- It consists of a bamboo tube provided with a funnel shaped mouth.
- One man drops the seeds through the funnel and other man handles the plough and the bullocks. This is a slow and laborious method.
- Transplanting
- Transplanting consists of preparing seedlings in nursery and then planting these seedlings in the prepared field.
- Equipment for placing plants in the soil is called transplanter.
- Hill dropping
- In this method, seeds are dropped at fixed spacing and not in a continuous stream.
- Thus, the spacing between plant to plant in a row is constant.
- Check row planting
- It is a method of planting, in which row-to-row and plant-to-plant distance is uniform.
- A machine used for check row planting is called check row planter.