THE TREND OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE RICE PLANTING MECHANIZATION

Transplanting technology has been used for rice planting for many many years in China Recently, direct seeding is introduced in certain places and is recognized that it needs less power, less time to cultivate per unit area than transplanting and is easy to realize mechanization, especilly in paces where rice weedicides become popular and the shortage of the rural labor that shifts to the village and town industries owing to their developments is prom-inent.Under these conditions for the future in China what kind of mechanization of rice planting-transplanting or direct seeding mechanization will be led.Through the investigation and analysis of the rice cultivation in China and abroad, past and present the author points out three problems existing on the path of the Chinese rice mechanization.Transplanting or direct seeding mechanization is the 1st problern.The major objective of the Chinese agricultural development within a considerable period from now on is to increase the yield of crops especially to raise the yield per unit area, and is not simply to increase the labor productivity.Thus, a large rice growing aresa ought to use transplanting and its mechanization as the main way and only a small unmber of places where the shortage of the rural labor is prominent and the planting areas per unit labor is relatively large will take direct seeding and its mechanization.Owing to this fact, the 2nd problem, mechanization of rice seedlings raising arid the 3rd problem, mechanization of rice translanting are aroused. Finally, the solution or the future development of these three problems is discussed in this paper.