Optimum Seeding Date of Wet Hill Seeding on Puddled Soil after Weedy Rice Control in Southern Plain Area of South Korea

Abstract

Wet hill seeding (WHS) is one of the more famous labor and money saving methods technology used for rice cultivation. In WHS, rice standing percentage and weedy rice occurrence are the most important factors considered to secure a rice yield. We investigated the optimum seeding date of WHS in the Southern Plain area of South Korea. Weedy rice needed two weeks at 15°C to show over 80% emergence. Germinated rice seed grown at 20°C needed over for 10 days to achieve a shoot length over 3 cm. In field cultivation, the mean temperature for ten days after seeding showed a highly positive correlation with rice standing rate, spikelet number per square meter and yield index that favorably compared to machine transplanting. With these data, we suggest that the optimum seeding date of WHS that can secure over 98% of yield index of machine transplanting in Southern part of Korea is May. 21~Jun. 5 in Honam and May. 16~Jun. 5 in Yeongnam area.