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Field studies were conducted at the International Rice Research Institute, IRRI, farm on a manual rice transplanter, developed at the IRRI, under the following conditions: three levels of land preparation (low, medium and high); three water depths: 0–30 mm, 30–60 mm and 60–100 mm; and three seedling ages of 14–17, 18–21 and 22–25 days. The studies were extended to two other types of soils in farmers' fields to assess the results for the combination of land preparation, water depth and seedling age found to give minimum defective hills among treatment groups at the IRRI farm. At this farm the transplanter performed well, with less than 5% defective hills when using seedlings 14–17 days old in up to 100 mm water depth at the medium level of land preparation, up to 60 mm water depth at the low level of land preparation and up to 30 mm water in overprepared (high level) land. The transplanter also worked …