Hello everyone,
When establishing a rice nursery by scattering the seeds, one small mistake can have a big effect on germination: covering the seeds with too much soil.
Rice seeds need a few things to grow especially when it is in a nursery, it need moisture, warmth 馃サ, and accesss to oxygen to germinate properly which is why the amount of soil used to cover the seeds at the moment of planting is very important, it could be the reason why you might not be getting as much growth from the seeds you've planted as you should have.
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The picture shows just how much weight the soil has placed on the germinating seedlings, which are still very young. Some have pulled up with a noticeable amount of soil around their roots.
When rice seedlings are buried too deeply, it has to make use of a lot of their stored energy to push up from the ground; now, while some eventually make it, others become weak and fail to emerge from the soil.
This leads to so many things like poor, uneven emergence, weak, elongated seedlings, and seedlings dying before reaching the surface.
The essence of covering with first the soil and then with dry grasses and branches is so that we can protect the seeds from birds while it germinates, so a little covering will do the trick; birds just need something to make it look a little confusing and less obvious to their sight.
The lesson is simple: when scattering rice seeds, don't bury them deeply. Give them enough soil to establish, but not so much that the young seedlings have to fight their way to the surface.
