Seed Quality Enhancement Techniques in the Production of Elite Seedlings Suitable for Machine Transplanting in Rice

The goal of the current study was to study the effect of seed enhancement techniques for the production of elite seedlings suitable for machine transplanting in rice (ADT 45, CO 51) and an experiment was laid out in Factorial Completely Randomized Block Design (FCRD) in three replications in the Department of Seed Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during 2023. In order to overcome the major constraint in machine transplanting of rice ie., planting density (number of seedlings per hill), an improved seedling characteristics should be obtained. The treatment consists of T0 - Dry seeds, T1- Seed coating with Vithai Amirtham, T2 - Seed coating with Vithai Amirtham + Priming, T3 - Sprouted seeds, T4 - Seed coating with Vithai Amirtham+ Sprouted seeds, T5 - Seed coating with Vithai Amirtham+ Priming + Sprouted seeds. Among the different treatments, T5 sprouted seeds after coating with Vithai Amirtham (20 ml/kg) and hydro priming exhibits higher speed of germination, root length, shoot length, dry matter and vigour index than the control (dry seeds). From this study, it was concluded that seed coating with Vithai Amirtham and hydro priming has led to improved seedling quality characteristics, thereby the number of seedlings per hill during machine transplanting could be reduced and hence this would be a successful pre-sowing seed treatment to overcome the problem in machine transplanting of rice.