Ludhiana, July 15 -- Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) introduced a tractor-operated mat-type nursery seeder that is fast becoming a farmer's favourite. Traditionally, raising a mat-type nursery, essential for mechanical paddy transplantation, involved tedious manual labour, slow processes, and high costs but this new innovation by PAU has changed the game.

Developed in 2021, the tractor-operated seeder streamlines all key tasks such as soil preparation, polythene laying, seed sowing, and soil covering in one go. Operable with a 40+ HP tractor, the machine can prepare mats for transplanting in about 150 acres per day, with a fuel usage of just 4.65 litres per hour. It saves 64-68% of costs and 93-94.4% of labour, making it 30 times mo...