The article about this rice experiment came in a magazine called 'Ore Bhoomi Ore Jeevan' (One Earth One Life), which is a monthly in Malayalam for environmental conservation.
Article was written by an organic farmer K.Basheer, Sujeevanam, Mannarkkad,Kerala. He came to this observation when they were cultivating a traditional variety of rice called 'Cheru vellari' in Abhayam, a charitable trust run by Mr. Krishnan for old people.
They got the seeds of 'Cheru Vellari' from Malappuram. It is a red rice, with 120 days of duration and reaches a height of 3-4 feets. After the first crop when there were going to till it for next crop, they saw rice is again growing from the left over. Then they just left it and applied some cow dung and they got a very good yield from the 2nd crop than the previous one. First time it was around 1600Kgs of paddy.
After this crop, they left all the straw back and observed that rice is growing back again and they left it as it is and got a good yield again.
They are at the 5th crop now, and after the rain the rice plants are growing, has to wait for another 3-4 months to know the results.
It says that, lot of traditional rice varieties has this property of ratooning and we can get another crop from the previous one.
Some photos taken on 19-June-2016
There is regrowth from previous cut plants and also there are new plants from fallen seeds
Article was written by an organic farmer K.Basheer, Sujeevanam, Mannarkkad,Kerala. He came to this observation when they were cultivating a traditional variety of rice called 'Cheru vellari' in Abhayam, a charitable trust run by Mr. Krishnan for old people.
They got the seeds of 'Cheru Vellari' from Malappuram. It is a red rice, with 120 days of duration and reaches a height of 3-4 feets. After the first crop when there were going to till it for next crop, they saw rice is again growing from the left over. Then they just left it and applied some cow dung and they got a very good yield from the 2nd crop than the previous one. First time it was around 1600Kgs of paddy.
After this crop, they left all the straw back and observed that rice is growing back again and they left it as it is and got a good yield again.
They are at the 5th crop now, and after the rain the rice plants are growing, has to wait for another 3-4 months to know the results.
It says that, lot of traditional rice varieties has this property of ratooning and we can get another crop from the previous one.
Some photos taken on 19-June-2016
There is regrowth from previous cut plants and also there are new plants from fallen seeds
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18-Sept-2016
Today met Basheer master in a meeting and asked him about the ratoon cropping and it looks like, the rice didn't establish well on this season and hence they ploughed and started a new cultivation.
1 comment:
An interesting post
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