Overlapped Tray Seedling Raising Model for Mechanical Transplanting of Rice

With the development of China's social economy, transfer of rural labors, and rise of labor costs, the rice production technologies are changing from manual operation to mechanical operation. The core of mechanical rice production is mechanical planting, while the key to mechanical planting is the seedling raising. On the basis of analyzing and studying the problems and experience of traditional mechanical transplanting of rice, a new overlapped tray seedling raising model was introduced. Main features of this model: substrate seedling raising and overlapped seedling tray. The seedling trays for seeding line are overlapped, and the overlapped trays are moved into the seedling room with controlled temperature and humidity. The temperature of the seedling room is controlled at 30-32℃, and the humidity of the seedling room is controlled at above 90%. After about 48 h, when the seedling height reaches 0.5 cm, move the seedling trays to the nursery. This model consists of one seeding center (seedling raising center) and N nurseries, to realize 1+N seedling raising for mechanical transplanting of rice. One seeding center can provide seedlings for several hundred to several thousand hectares of mechanical transplanting of rice, and provide a new model for social services. This model could improve the quality of seedlings, increase the seedling survival rate by about 20%, reduce the seedling raising costs by 15%-20%, reduce the seedling raising risks, and greatly increase the utilization rate of the site and equipment of seedling raising center.