Rice Plantation and its Growth

As such, the rice production cycle is divided into 3 distinct stages. These are pre-planting, growth and post-production. In one of our previous blogs, we thoroughly discussed the initial stage of rice production, i.e. the pre-planting process.

As such, the rice production cycle is divided into 3 distinct stages. These are pre-planting, growth and post-production. In one of our previous blogs, we thoroughly discussed the initial stage of rice production, i.e. the pre-planting process.

With this blog, we’d now move to the next step of rice production process, which is the growth stage. The rice growth stage includes 5 different processes. These are:

  • Rice plantation
  • Water management
  • Managing nutrients
  • Weed control
  • Disease and pest management

 

1. Rice Planting

Rice planting begins once the land has been prepared. As such, in rice farming, 4 different methods of cultivation exist.

These are mentioned as follows:

    • Direct seeding or broadcasting: Broadcasting involves sowing the seeds directly by hand and is suitable for areas with infertile soil and dry land.

 

    • Transplanting: Practiced where the soil fertility is optimum, transplanting is the most popular seed establishing method. It involves the transfer of pre-germinated seedlings from seedbed to the main field.

 

    • Drilling: Confined to peninsular locations, this method only requires 2 persons; one for ploughing land and the other for planting seeds.

 

  • Japanese technique: The Japanese method requires seeds to be sown on raised nursery beds which should further be transplanted in rows. It requires timely fertigation, i.e. injecting fertilizers and other chemicals into the soils, and weeding and is only used for high-yield rice varieties.

 

2. Water Management

Everyone involved in the process of rice production knows that rice of extremely sensitive to water shortage. Generally, rice is grown in fields that are continuously flooded for at least 10 days, almost a week until beginning the harvest. This is particularly important for lowland rice. This constant flooding ensures water sufficiency while controlling weeds.

Since there is a global shortage of water, it’s important to follow water management practices like constructing field channels, prepare and level land, and construct bunds.

3. Manage Nutrients

During the growth stage, rice plants require nutrients to grow and develop. Also, applying nutrients to the crop is also one of the most crucial steps for improving soil fertility and prevents nutrient imbalance in the field.

4. Weed Management

To prevent yield losses, bring down production cost and maintain grain quality, it’s fairly important to prevent and control weeds. Since weeds compete equally for sunlight, water and nutrients, it becomes all the more important to prevent them. Not just during the crop growth, weed management should be practiced during land preparation and in the nursery as well.

5. Disease and Pest Management

Weed is not the only enemy that we face during rice production; the rice plant faces a lot of foes during its growth. These are insects, rodents, viruses and diseases. On an average, each year, farmers lose about 37% of their crops to diseases and pests. It is, therefore, important for farmers to understand how pests and other enemies interact with crops and come up with necessary management practices.

They need to:

  • Clean the field and farming equipment
  • Use pest resistant varieties
  • Avoid over fertilizing
  • Implement natural pest inhibitors
  • Refrain from applying pesticides during the initial 40 days of seed planting

For detailed information on the above-mentioned steps and any other information on rice growth, rice milling and rice storage, one should contact Nextech Agri Solutions, a New Delhi based rice planting and rice milling consultant.

 

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The Complete Rice Production Cycle

Generally, rice plants take about 3 to 6 months to grow from seedlings to reach maturity, mostly varying according to the environmental conditions and undergo 3 distinct growth phases, which are vegetative, reproductive and ripening.
As such, rice varieties across the world are categorized into 2 groups based on their growth duration.

Generally, rice plants take about 3 to 6 months to grow from seedlings to reach maturity, mostly varying according to the environmental conditions and undergo 3 distinct growth phases, which are vegetative, reproductive and ripening.

As such, rice varieties across the world are categorized into 2 groups based on their growth duration. There is a short-duration variety maturing in 100 to 120 days and a longer when taking about 150 days.

Let’s now take a look at how rice is grown:

1. Seed Quality Analysis & Selection

To realize the yield potential, a seed must be grown, harvested and finally processed justly. Also, healthy, good-quality seeds carry the potential of increasing the yield by 20%. Some of the benefits of using good quality seeds are:
– Decreased seeding rates
– Increased crop emergence
– The decreased need for replanting
– Vigorous early growth
– Increased resistance to pests, insects and natural diseases
– Reduced weed growth

A good seed is one which is pure, i.e. coming from single variety, uniform in size, viable and free of pathogens, insects and seed-borne diseases.

2. Land Preparation

It’s mandatory to prepare the land and render it suitable for planting seeds. The soil, before planting, should be in the best physical condition if one expects an optimum plant growth. Essentially, land preparation involves plowing, digging up or harrowing to till and leveling the soil.

3. Crop Establishment

There are two common practices for planting rice seeds. These are:
– Direct seeding: Done either by hand or machine, direct seeding involves broadcasting pre-germinated/dry seeds. Generally, dry seeds are manually planted into the soil in ecosystems that are rain-fed, while pre-germinated seeds are planted in areas with dry soil.

– Transplanting: More popular of the two, transplanting involves the transfer of pre-germinated seeds from seedbed to wet fields. Although it requires less seeds and is a particularly effective method to control weeds, it is labour intensive.

4. Water & Nutrient Management

Since rice is grown in bunded fields which are flooded for up-to 10 days prior to the harvest, it’s fairly easy to determine that rice is extremely sensitive to water shortage. Contributing to this fact is its semi-aquatic ancestry. Keep in mind the following water management tips for maximum rice yields:
– Construct field channels
– Optimum land preparation
– Leveling the soil
– Construct bunds to limit any water loss

It’s also important to keep in mind that rice plant requires different nutrition at different stages. Nutrition management is a chief component of rice production.

5. Crop Health

Globally, farmers annually lose about 35% of their crops to plant diseases and pests. Rodents, insects, viruses, weeds, etc. are arch nemesis of rice plant. It’s important for rice farmers to understand how the crops interact with the pests and avoid such conditions. Certain tips that could help are:
– Land and water management
– Hand weeding
– Herbicides
– Good cleaning of farming equipments
– Pest resistant seed varieties

6. Harvest

Harvesting involves the collection of mature rice plants. AS we’ve discussed above, rice crops generally take 100 to 150 days to mature, depending on their growth duration. To minimize grain damage and for maximum yield, it’s mandatory to involve good harvesting techniques. It can be done either manually or using a combine harvester. Harvesting includes:
– Reaping
– Threshing
– Cleaning
– Hauling
– Field drying
– Stacking
– Packaging

 

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Rice Production: Pre-Planting Activities

This post by Nextech Agri Solutions aims to provide practical knowledge necessary for small-scale farmers entering the rice production business. Beginning with the pre-planting activities, this post will cover the rice varieties to choose from, information on seed quality, crop calendar and land preparation.

This post by Nextech Agri Solutions aims to provide practical knowledge necessary for small-scale farmers entering the rice production business. Beginning with the pre-planting activities, this post will cover the rice varieties to choose from, information on seed quality, crop calendar and land preparation.

These are 4 of the most important activities before the rice planting, and needs to be taken care of if one anticipates a high, prosperous yield.

1. Selecting the rice variety

It’s fairly important to begin with healthy seeds of a locally adapted rice variety. This ensures that the crop has a high yield and attracts good market price, and is also cheaper than importing high-potential varieties from other countries.

Mentioned below are the characteristic features a good rice variety must possess:
– Appreciable cooking characteristics, colour, aroma, taste and shape
– High selling price
– Stability
– Optimum yield over multiple seasons
– High tillering capability for competing against weed
– Tolerance against crop diseases and pests
– Resistance to droughts and floods
– Exact maturity length that matches the growing season

2. Seed quality

The crop quality entirely depends on the seeds sown. Since seeds are the foundation of any crop, it becomes pivotal that one ensures that the seeds utilized are of optimal quality.

Good quality seeds ensure the following benefits:
– Increased uniformity
– Less replanting
– Lower seed rate
– Better emergence (greater than 70%)
– High initial growth
– Increased resistance against pests, insects and diseases
– Decreased weed
– Increased yield

The following factors are used to determine the quality of rice:
– Varietal purity: It involves the percentage of germination, moisture content, weed, other crop seeds, stones and red rice seeds.
– Viability: Germination potential, moisture level and vigour are used to determine the seed viability.

The germination rate is indicative of seed vigor. A swift rate of germination shows that the seed will establish itself well in the field stage. Weaker seeds are easily affected by environmental stress and are known to produce weaker seedlings.
– Moisture Content: As such, moisture content should be less than 14%

3. Crop Calendar

Crop calendar provides for a reliable framework for all the subsequent farming activities.
It provides a clear schedule from seed sowing to storage and allows the farmers to:
– Decide the input purchase
– Prepare a budget for all the activities
– Determine labour, capital and credit requirement
– Prepare land and harvest

Based on local experience and with the help of agricultural promoters, determine the best date to plant. Determine the time it takes for your chosen variety to harvest. Establish the labour and finance requirements at each of the subsequent steps, i.e. plowing, weeding, fertilizing, etc.

4. Land Preparation

This is the final step before we begin with the planting. It is an important step which helps control weeds, recycles plant nutrients and provides for a sustainable surface and soil mass for direct seeding.

As such, land preparation either begins during fallow, i.e. the period wherein a field is left uncultivated so it regains its fertility, or immediately after the previous harvest. Moreover, it usually takes around a month for complete land preparation.

It typically involves 3 different stages which are:
– Clearing the field
– Creating compost from rice residues
– Planting cover crops to enrich soil and suppress weeds

 

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Nigerian Federal Government all set to install 110 Rice Milling Machines

The Federal Government of Nigeria recently acquired 110 rice milling machines, which, if everything goes as per the set plans, would be installed in different parts of the country. The installation process is expected to continue until the end of July, and is aimed to boost the dwindling production of rice in the country.

The Federal Government of Nigeria recently acquired 110 rice milling machines, which, if everything goes as per the set plans, would be installed in different parts of the country. The installation process is expected to continue until the end of July, and is aimed to boost the dwindling production of rice in the country.

This development was confirmed by Malam Garba Shehu, who is the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Buhari, on his Facebook page, in Abuja.

Shehu, the president’s spokesperson stirred a national debate with his claim of Nigeria being the second largest producer of rice. Following a rice revolution that commenced in 2016, Nigeria achieved the position for being the second largest rice producer in the world.

Quoting an investigative media report, Shehu also remarked that 48,000 millionaires emerged in the state of Kebbi alone, for growing rice.

Shehu also claimed that over-reliance on oil has destroyed the country and that they are not in a position to continue. And the diversification of economy aims at distributing money across ordinary Nigerian citizens, ultimately leading to widespread prosperity across the whole country.

The president’s aide wants the country to be proud of the country’s ongoing agricultural revolution.

However, he also stated that the officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture are going to come up with latest development on Nigeria’s rice production.

Mr. Shehu’s Facebook post further read ‘’we’re not the first to say that Nigeria has reached second position in the world in terms of rice production. CNN, with their global reach also said the same thing. CNN is not a frivolous source and there’s reason to believe them.’’

“While the country waits for the actual numbers to come from the Food and Agricultural Organization, the government will be collating their own figures. Nigeria has been feeding a lot of parts from the north, west and central Africa since the last October and most of them have been shopping for millet, sesame, rice and sorghum in Nigeria.”

“In order to support the booming rice industry, the Federal Government acquired 110 rice milling machines. A lot is happening in the country and all of us should be proud of it”.

To keep yourself updated on news, events and the latest developments in the world of agricultural processing and engineering, keep following Nextech’s blogs.

 

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Reduced Rice Production May Cause A Global Food Crisis

Top rice mill consultant in India, Nextech Solutions, with the biggest and most prestigious brands as its clients, such as Shakti Bhog & Jagat, has been working to make its blog the number one source of information & news pertaining to the grain and seed industry.

Top rice mill consultant in India, Nextech Solutions, with the biggest and most prestigious brands as its clients, such as Shakti Bhog & Jagat, has been working to make its blog the number one source of information & news pertaining to the grain and seed industry. Take for example, the story of Andhra rice miller lobby allegedly creating an artificial scarcity, or some expert tips from the hospitality industry on how to cook restaurant-like rice. We want our readers to have the convenience of visiting a single destination to remain well-versed with what is happening in the industry.

Today, Nextech is sharing with you the concern of rice production levels causing a global food crisis concern.

About five years back, the UN declared that world population had crossed the 7 billion mark. The number has been ever increasing. Goes without saying, more people means more food. To meet the requirements of this ever-increasing population, food production has also been increasing. However, for the first time in 6 years, rice production is going to alarmingly decline. This would have terrible consequences, particularly for Asia, where rice forms the staple food for large populations.

Some would know that rice production was declined in the year 2007-2008, as a result of El Niño. (Simply saying, because of drastic weather patterns.) India banned rice export due to the poor production, which in turn led to a sudden increase in prices. This further caused food riots in markets like the Philippines. The situation got so difficult that the island nation had to request neighbour Vietnam for help. Filipino military had to oversee the sale of rice at subsidized rates.

Experts fear a similar crisis again as the top three rice exporting countries, namely, India, Thailand and Vietnam experience unfavorable climate conditions. Once again, prices of this staple food could rise.

The best rice mill plant manufacturer India is going to keep you posted on this story.

 

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