Sowing

• Sowing is the most important step in crop production.
• Before sowing, good quality seeds are selected.
• Good quality seeds are clean and healthy seeds of a good variety.
• Farmers prefer to use seeds which give a high yield.

Selection of Seeds:

• Take a beaker and fill half of it with water.
• Put a handful of wheat seeds and stir well.
• Damaged seeds are hollow thus lighter. Therefore, they float on water. Some seeds sink at the bottom.
• The heavier seeds are selected and sown in the soil by two ways:

(1) Traditional tool   (2) Seed drill

Traditional tool:

• The seeds are filled into the funnel, passed down through two or three pipes having sharp ends. These ends pierce into the soil and place seeds there.

Seed drill:

• Sowing, with the help of tractors.
• This tool sows the seeds uniformly at proper distances and depths.
• Seeds get covered by the soil after sowing.
• Prevents damage caused by birds.
• Sowing by using a seed drill saves time and labour.
• An appropriate distance between the seeds is important sufficient sunlight, nutrients and water from the soil.