苗 often appears as a suffix in compound nouns: 树苗 (shùmiáo, tree seedling), 禾苗 (hémiáo, grain seedling), 疫苗 (yìmiáo, vaccine — literally 'epidemic seedling').
Top grass radical in its compressed three-stroke form — two crossed sprouts. Indexes 苗 in the vast botanical family with 花, 草, 茶, 菜. The radical tells you immediately that 苗 names something green and growing.
Bottom 田 — pictograph of a cultivated field divided into plots. Pure semantic role: grass over field gives the precise picture of seedlings sprouting in a paddy. That farming scene is the literal etymology, which then extends to 'young of any kind' — 苗 covers seedlings, hatchlings, and metaphorical buds.
