The study was conducted to establish the cultural practice of soil covering attached direct seeding machine with applying silicate fertilizer in rice culture. New direct seeding technology by using soil covering has recently released to alternative ne...
The study was conducted to establish the cultural practice of soil covering attached direct seeding machine with applying silicate fertilizer in rice culture. New direct seeding technology by using soil covering has recently released to alternative new method for transplanting in rice plant. Recently rice production has been under serious problem due to higher cost and labor shortage in Korea. In particular rice has been faced internationally on open market following to WTO and FTA agreement. Thus rice growers in Korea has been more concentrated on cost down using by direct seeding technology such as dry seeding and water seeding while these practices has severe constraints such as poor seedling, higher weed occurrence, lodging and poor grain quality. Recently, a new technology to solve a series of problem has released to farmer's field suggesting an alternative rice cultural technology in rice transplanting process. In this technology, there is an additional application that silicate can be applied to improve the physicochemical character of paddy soil.
1. Laboratory trial
Seedling stand rate was more promoted in soil covering materials (silicate, sand, and paddy soil than in the control. Seedling stand rate was ranged from 80 to 100%, otherwise it was low to 75% in the control.
2. Pot experiment
At the application of silicate, sand, and soil there was high in seedling establishment to 90~100% but it showed 55.0% seedling stand in the control, respectively. Under dry condition, seedling stand was 0% at the untreated control while 65~100% high in application of silicate, sand, and paddy soil. Meanwhile, under rainy condition untreated control there was 85% of seedling stand but paddy soil application was 20% due to blocking of oxygen and physical soil blockage.
3. Field experiment
There was high in seedling establishment of 96.0~100% (Gimpo) and 84.0~87.0% (Suwon) under application of silicate but untreated control plot obtained poor seedling stand of 36.0~37.0%. Rice growth at vegetative stage was also similar trend like at seedling stage. Rice yield was 527~579kg/10a at both experiment fields under application of silicate while there was 314kg/10a at the untreated control.
4. Effect of sideband placement method of fertilizer
The sideband placement method was so effective in this experiment in terms of rice yield while there was not affected by different materials and under rainy condition.
5. Development of new silicate for soil covering-drill seeding
A silicate for soil covering-drill seeding has developed and screening rice seedling establishment, growth and development. There was no significantly difference among materials in seedling stand, seedling number, shoot and root growth. A seedling damage was not observed by the silicates tested.
6. From the questions about users of soil covering-drill seeder which has newly developed and released the responses were in the following. The seeder was useful for lowland as well as upland up to 77 % among farmers. In particular it was good for seeding in the soybean, barley, wheat, maize and easy for handling and/or operation, in turn. Average coverage of the seeder for sowing per day was proven to 3.3 - 4.3 ha.
The advantages of the seeder are the reduction of production cost, large scale land management for rice cultivation, agriculture with environmental friendly, and high yield. On the other hand, the disadvantages of the machine were the difficulty of land preparation with puddled soil surface and easily roller break over long time use. Thus, the seeder might be needed to improve a shift of seed box cover, roller strength, and land preparation for sowing particular in puddled soil condition.