Costs of sowing to be halved:
New mechanized seeder and transplanter for paddy farmers
Two new mechanical devices to be introduced to farmers by Hayleys
Agro Products Limited (HAPL) could substantially reduce costs of crop
establishment and significantly improve yields of rice paddy from the
current Maha and forthcoming Yala seasons.
Locally developed and fabricated with inputs from the Farm
Mechanisation Research Centre (FMRC) of the Department of Agriculture, a
mechanised Seeder ready for use from Maha 2009-10 will reduce the seed
rate required per hectare of paddy by more than half, while a mechanised
Transplanter expected to be commercially available for the next Yala
season would also halve the cost of manual transplantation, the company
said.
The use of each of these machines in crop establishment, the only
area currently not mechanised in Sri Lanka, would increase paddy yields
by up to 15 percent and make pest and weed management very much easier,
Hayleys Group Director and Agri Sector Head Rizvi Zaheed said.
“These new machines are good examples of meaningful mechanisation
particularly in the context of labour shortages in many paddy
cultivating areas, and the need to reduce costs, improve yields and
produce better quality,” Zaheed said.
The Hayleys Agrotech Seeder, a device that resembles a lawn mower,
will enable farmers to return to row seeding, a better agronomic
practice than the direct seeding widely prevalent, HAPL Director/CEO
Upali Gangoda said.
Direct seeding consumes about 100 kg of seed per hectare, whereas row
seeding by machine requires only 40 to 50 kg and enables one worker to
seed three or four acres a day, he said.
“Fifty years ago and beyond, transplanting paddy from nurseries to
the fields was the predominant practice,” Gangoda said. “Sadly, labour
shortages have resulted in 95 percent of today’s paddy crops being
established through direct sowing, and only five percent is
transplanted.”
Mechanised row seeding practised widely in Vietnam, India and the
Philippines, is a more productive alternative to sowing and makes for
better crop management, higher labour productivity and better yields, he
said.
To promote the even better practice of transplanting 18 to 20 day old
paddy plants instead of direct sowing or row seeding, Hayleys Agro is
currently in the final stages of testing a mechanised Transplanter also
developed under the Agrotech range.
The diesel-powered machine would reduce the cost of manual
transplanting of Rs 6,500 to Rs 7,000 per acre to Rs 3,000 per acre, and
also substantially reduce harvesting costs, Gangoda disclosed.
“We expect to have this exciting new machine ready for deployment by
March 2010, in time for the Yala season,” he said. |