Author: Rajendra Uprety Title: Mechanized Transplanting Opportunities for SRI Presented at: The 5th International Rice Congress (SRI research side event) Venue: Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore Date: October 16, 2018

1. Mechanize transplanting opportunities
Rajendra Uprety, PhD
Senior Agriculture Extension Officer
Biratnagar, Nepal

2. Why mechanized transplanting??
• To benefit from the potential of younger seedlings.
• To utilize available space (wider space healthier crop higher yield).
• To maximize nutrient use efficiency (by mechanical weeding).
• To produce more crop per drop (increase water use efficiency).
• To sustain soil quality and fertility for more sustainable production
system.

3. Mechanized transplanting for SRI scale-up

4. Seedbed
preparation
and
transplanting
costs.

6. 0.3
30.7 49.2 50.0 51.4 62.1 64.2 73.4 89.8 97.6 107.1 114.1
139.0
213.0
287.4
339.7
129.9
106.8
168.9 174.2 186.2
215.4
245.4
204.7
256.7
227.1
265.5
300.6
369.4
490.8
601.5
711.3
0.0
100.0
200.0
300.0
400.0
500.0
600.0
700.0
800.0
Years
Labor wage and production cost of rice (1993-2014)
Labor wage (Rs/man day) Total cost (US$/ha)

7. Rice farming and average cost distribution in Nepal
Seed
5%
Nursery
Management
2%
Land
preparation
40%
Transplanting
11%
Irrigation
2%
Fertilizer cost
12%
Weeding
7%
Harvesting+
Threshing
21%

9. Machine
transplanted rice
field in Morang
district (2018)
It was 135 days
fine grain variety
Yield was 8.4 t/ha
Net profit was
72780 compare to
18050 by
conventional
method.

10. Conclusions: Mechanized transplanting for
Use younger seedlings
Proper spacing
Mechanical weeding
Labor saving
Production cost reduction
Profit maximization
Scale-up of SRI benefits