الفهرس 
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Abstract
Rice is one of the most strategic crops in Egypt and the world. More than half of the population in Egypt depends on rice, making it one of the most significant crops in that country. An imputed value of 1.186235 million feddan of Egypt’s rice areas are cultivated, yielding 4.84 million metric tons annually. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to modify the common seed drill to form furrows and sow dry rice grains directly in the hills between ridgers on wide soil furrows at the same time of sowing to increase the sowing accuracy, uniformity, and precise control of the seed quantity per unit area and minimize energy requirements and production costs. In addition, to evaluate the performance of the modified hill seed drill as a mechanical rice direct seeding method under different study parameters, and different irrigation interval techniques on rice crop yield and water productivity to control the requested irrigation water under the current Egyptian water scarcity as an alternative rice transplanting method.
The modification and development work of the modified hill drill were done at the workshop of the Rice Mechanization Center (RMC), Kafrelsheikh Governorate. The field experiments were carried out in clayey soil at the research farm of RMC during the 2021 and 2022 rice (Sakha Super 300) growing season. However, the field experiments were conducted using the modified hill seed drill under four different planting forward speeds, namely, 2.55, 4.01, 6.11 and 8.38 km/h.; three different hill spacings within the row, namely, 12.5, 15 and 17.5 cm; and three different cell volumes of feeding rollers, namely, 354, 428 and 509 mm3 with a fixed depth of 6 mm, under three different intervals of irrigation, namely, 5, 6 and 7 days. The performance evaluation results indicated that, the lowest percentage of rice grain visible damage was 2.39. While the highest values of germination ratio, grain cell filling efficiency, emergence percentage, and plant distribution uniformity were 97, 95.8, 84.87 and 91.41%, respectively. Also, the highest rice grain yield and straw yield were 4.79 and 6.78 Mg/fed., respectively. While net return and benefit-cost ratio were 33363 L.E./fed., and 230%, respectively, obtained under direct-seeded rice using modified hill drill at a planting forward speed of 2.55km/h, a grain cell volume of 509 mm3, hill spacing of 12.5 cm, and an interval irrigation of 5 days. The lowest value of total applied water was 4061 m3/fed., while the maximum value of water productivity was 1.12 kg/m3, obtained under the furrow irrigation system at 7 days intervals using direct-seeded rice using modified hill drill.