An overview on problems and prospects of transplanted maize with special reference to India

Abstract

Transplanting is the technique of moving of a plant from one location to another. This strategy is commonly practiced to establish crops when conditions are less favourable for direct seeding. Birds and squirrels damage to seedlings of maize is a serious problem resulting in poor crop stand and low yield. Delayed germination and plant growth receives a major setback due to late sowing of maize which reduces grain yield; however, reduction of yield can be compensated by transplantation technique. Transplanting of maize is a strategy that can be used to achieve optimum plant densities, better crop stand and obviously to get optimum yield. It reduces the nutrient requirement and also shortens the growth period of crop that helps farmers to harvest a third crop in intensive cropping system. Transplanted crop produces about 15.44% higher grain yield and can be harvested 10-12 days earlier that of direct seeding crop, so, late maturity high yielding cultivars can be fitted in to available growing season. Though, there are several advantages of transplanted maize, it is not popular in India due to lack of awareness, lacking in proper rational scientific technology and very little information about age of seedling and optimum dose of nutrient. Farmers can be benefitted if proper technology regarding age of seedling, process of transplanting and other cultivation techniques of raising transplanted maize is supplied to them.