Merits of transplanting paddy

Thursday, December 6, 2007 is the day, my rice nursery is being worked on to remove the small plants to transplant the next day. I sowed this nursery on November 17th. Back in the 70’s all advice was to transplant paddy to increase yield, as it will give space for the plant to grow and maximize the yield. There were transplanting machines, and methods leaving a gap in rows to enable ease of weeding. Today almost no one does this. They all say it is too costly as we have to use non existent labor to do so and the yield improvement does not warrant this extra expense. In Japan everyone does, When I visited Japan in May this year, every filed was transplanted and they have a greater labor shortage than we have. No doubt they use transplanting machines, but remember the farmer himself works his field with no additional labor.

The photos show 8 ladies in the neighborhood who are preparing the bundles of plants for transplanting. They were saying that even the knowledge of how to do this is dying as now one transplants citing cost even though yield improvements offset the planting cost.

Perhaps next time I may not be able to find 8 like this to do the transplanting and have to resort to the now familiar sowing method as I do not seem to be able to even locate a transplanter.

The bundles of paddy plants in the nursery awaiting transplanting

A close up view of the plants showing how they are tied together