You can definitely seed by hand, but the drop seeder will reduce your time, is less fatiguing, and will increase your precision. I am seeding one seeds per plug/soil block with the 3.5mm plate. I then switched to the 6mm plate to drop vermiculite on top of the seeds. You can also cover with soil if using trays. This will increase moisture and aid germination. I designed this magnetic drop seeder to help improve our efficiency at the farm. At the time I created this tool we were starting 1000 let