Happy Hill Rice - Rainy Season

26-May-2025

I had kept few happy hill rice seeds in refrigerator, 100 seeds kept outside for 2 days and then sown here. I had mulched and kept this area in summer, also had applied some compost and cowdung. If there is sufficient mulch we get good weed control, at the beginning of monsoon. If area is left uncultivated, within no time, weeds take over. It is better to start rice at the beginning of monsoon, so that weeds hasn't germinated.

Made a channel using locally made fokin hoe put 2 seeds at around 20cm distance and later covered with soil.

This year monsoon started very early and is intense, seeds may take more time to germinate

Coconut tree leaf is shading this region partially hence cut them

Jackfruit trees are also shading this region, hence cut few branches

14-June-2025

It didn't rain for 10 days, and not much seeds germinated. Hence again levelled the place and put 300 seeds this time, could see why in broadcasting farmers always put more seeds. The seeds were put in water for 20 hours and brodcasted.

28-June-2025
Rice seedlings are seen, but may be around 70 or so would have been made it from 300 seeds. Because of heavy rain, the fertile top soil washed away, not much mulch was there this time. May be it is wiser to put bunds on 4 sides so that water gets stagnated and rain drops does not do much damage.

27-July-2025

lots of plants are falling down since their roots are at the top, so I just kept them inside the soil.

10-Aug=2025

Stylo Santhese Hamata broadcasted in between and they have germinated well and growing. No rain since last 10 days, this is the problem, in between rain just vanishes altogether.

this is another patch started 3 weeks back, here also stylo santhes hamata is growing underneath rice

09-Sept-2025

grains started turning yellow

Planting Glyricidia cuttings in pre-monsoon

 In coconut area, wanted more shade in the summer. Thinking of adding multiple ever green support trees for this, one being Glyricidia. We got a good summer rain, just wanted to check if Glyricidia can grow in pre-monsoon shower.

Planted around 25 cuttings, wanted to see the success rate...

24-April-2025

Few of cuttings has new shoots coming, it is interesting to see with that moisture, it is growing well, but whether they will survive only time can tell.

03-June-2025

With rain, farm became green again and glyricidea is growing well.

Rennovating farm house

 Farm house has been rennovated...added sitout at the front and backside...all the wooden doors and windows replaced with steel doors and windows since termite damaged most of the old doors and windows and snakes started crawling in.

Visitors are welcome now...there is limited space, may be maximum 4 people can stay..there is electricity and water now...

Turmeric harvesting and planting on same day

Turmeric in one area yielded reasonably well, it was harvested and on the same day, seeds were put on the beds and mulched. This saves lots of effort since at the time of harvesting any way soil has to be worked and planting on the same day makes things easy.

Ash guard

I am finding that ash guard is an easy crop, if it is grown at the beginning of rainy season, it just grows well and you should make sure that it has some place to climb and there is enough sunlight.

I usually grow it at home and with a single string it climbs all the way to terrace and spreads there and produces enough fruits. This time did same thing at the farm, allowed it to climb on a tamarind tree and it produced 4 fruits so far, photos coming up soon.

No till rice field - new strategies

For next season no till will be done with fodder grass mulch. Fodder grass has been growing in the field at around 8 feet apart rows. Also growing the same in nearby areas, so that there is enough mulch, but still it looks like more fodder grass may be required to cover the 0.1Acre area completely. 

Cut the grass growing in the field and also fodder grass and mulched. Also planted some lablab beans seeds here and there and in one field cowpea seeds.

Plan is to cut and mulch the fodder grass in every month and also clear the grasses which is coming up so that next year will have a clean ground to start with and put the rice seeds in seed balls in advance so that they come with rain.

These dogs were guarding me when myself and Palani were clearing the grass. It took 3 days work to clear the complete area.

27-May-2025

This year monsoon started early, by around May 23rd, and it has been raining heavily. Grasses started growing wild, including fodder grass. Cut the complete area with two women laborers and could complete in one day labor and I also did fair amount of work. Could see the weed pressure and hence grass from two other areas was brought and mulched the middle one.

In some areas where there was sufficient amount of mulch, weeds are much less. But feels like, in summer the area should be completely cut and existing grass to be cleared and just before rain or at April 14th, take all the mulch and sow seed ball in line and mulch lightly. Ideally would prefer to make a cut in the soil and put seed balls inside soil. But what tools to use to make this cut is a question. Anyway the rice seeds should get a chance to establish before the weeds.

Growing rice for own consumption

I used to grow happy hill rice in grow bag on terrace. While counting the rice grains from a single plant, found that each head is easily 200 grains, like that 3-4 heads are there from each plant. Assuming 3 heads, we get 600 grains from a single plant, this is very conservative calculation, it can easily go upto 1000 from a single plant.

I was thinking if the productivity is so much growing food should be manageable. The major task in rice farming is about weeding in 0.1 acre and this has to be done at least twice. I thought this should be doable even if I have to do it by myself.

Mulching can be done in advance to make sure that weeds does not grow, this has to be monitored closely and if there are some areas with more weeds, that area has to be mulched more.

Some more calculations...

Average weight of a rice grain is 20mg, as per AI of Whatsapp. If we sow 500 gms of seeds and the productivity of each plant is 600 grains, simple calculation would give 600 * 500 gms = 300,000gms i.e 300Kgs. This is assuming all the plants survive and all give 600 grains. Anyway we have discounted to 600 grains, which can be boosted to even 800, if we think practically. At least 250Kgs should be a reasonable harvest to achieve.

1 acre is 43560 sqft, and 0.1 acre is 4356 sqft, if we have 500gms and each grain is 20mg, there are 25000 grains...i.e 25000 plants in 4356 sqft, i.e 5.7 plants in per sqft, which is quite reasonable.

Also we have to make sure that field is completely covered with mulch in the summer and before sowing remove all the weeds manually, there will be minimum if there is good amount of mulch.