Comparative study on seedling performance raised by new single seedling nursery tray and conventional system

Raising of rice seedlings is among the important factors responsible for better growth and development of rice plants as well as increasing the grain yield. Conventional method of raising rice seedlings required larger space, time consuming (24 hours seed soaking and 34 hours in jute bag up to sprouting) and labour intensive procedure, which limits the production capacity of rice seedlings. Transplanted seedlings raised by new developed single seedling nursery tray have not been compared with the conventional system in the field. The objective of this study was to evaluate the average number of tiller per hill at 60-day after transplanting (DAT). The experimental design is one treatment [new developed single seedling nursery tray (T1)] and three replications. The age of transplanted seedlings raised by the new developed single seedling nursery tray was 8 days old. Number of tillers were randomly selected, counted and recorded at 60 DAT from each treatment plots for further analysis. Average number of tiller (32.27 tiller/hill) was collected from previous published article at 60 DAT using 8 days old seedlings. One sample T test was used to analyse the data using SPSS statistical analysis software (version 21) at 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference. The result of the analysis showed significant difference between them, and larger average number of tillers in T1 (68.56 tiller/hill) than the existing average number of tillers. The study depicted that using new developed single seedling nursery tray is one of the options to increase the number of tillers in SRI farming in order to increase the number of effective tillers, number of panicles, straw yield and grain yield of rice plants.