SEC | S20W2: How to cultivate a paddy

I am not a farmer but an engineer and business expert but come from a family of agricultural engineers and having spent my younger age up to 15 in different agricultural institutes, with farmers in the fields and talking to my father's coworkers agricultural scientists, and their students.

Yet I have a lot of experience in farming even though I am not a farmer, and I can say that like any other crop, rice also requires certain conditions to grow therefore feeling great to be a part of the Challenge for season 20, week 2 "SEC | S20W2: How to cultivate a paddy"

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Here are my answers in line with your questions.

What is the method of rice seedbed preparation and what steps are taken in preparing the soil for rice cultivation

The most important requirements for rice growth are related to climate and soil. Any rice grower must know what conditions are that are favorable for the rice crop and in which areas the best crop can be expected.

Rice is basically a warm season crop that requires consistent heat and moisture to grow. However, it can grow even in non-tropical areas, but then the growers get a lesser yield compared to what farmers get in tropical climates.

I have been living close to Dehradun where the best Basmati rice is produced and the fact that entire foothills and even hilly areas of Himalayaslaya are good for the best rice crops. However, I must add that rice is the main crop of not only India but entire Asia therefore one of the main crops of the area.

What is the importance of planting rice seeds at the right time?

Although rice sowing is area specific, in our country the best time for sowing paddy is from mid-June to the first week of July. Preparations for paddy cultivation should be started before the arrival of the monsoon so that paddy can be planted as soon as the monsoon arrives. If you want to know according to months, then it can be from the end of May to the end of June.

So broadly, it can be said that rice cultivation is best in summer and it is harvested in winter. But as I said, it is area specific, so it is sown according to when it rains in that area.

As I understand it, the farmer should keep in mind that he needs a seedbed of 2-10% of the area of the field where he wants to eventually plant his rice plants. If he has a 1 hectare field, then his seedbed should be at least 0.02 hectares. He needs about 600-700 kg of seed per hectare of seedbed, depending on the rice variety. Rice plants are planted in rows at a distance of 5–10 cm.

After planting the seeds in the seedbed, the farmer fills the bed with water to a depth of 4-5 cm. Rice plants are kept in the nursery for 15 to 40 days and are usually ready to be planted when they are 20–25 cm tall. And then the farmer plants them in straight lines in the field, and the distance between the plants is about 20 cm.

How is regular irrigation and fertilizer applied after sowing rice seeds?

As I said, rice needs more water than other crops. The water requirement for growing rice is much more than any other crop. Therefore, rice is cultivated only in places that receive at least 100–110 cm of rainfall annually.

The best growing conditions can be found in areas that receive an average of 160 to 300 cm of rainfall annually. Paddy fields should be kept submerged for at least 10 weeks during the growing season, with water depths ranging from 25 mm at the time of transplanting to 150 mm throughout the crop life cycle.

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What are the major pests and diseases of rice crops, and how can they be controlled?

Our farmers are treating the soil with biofertilizers instead of using chemical fertilizers. While preparing the field, they are spraying 10-12 kg of blue-green algae BGA and 10-12 kg of PAB biofertilizer per acre of soil. The organisms present in these fertilizers help in delivering nitrogen and potash elements from chemical fertilizers to the paddy plant in a better manner and also make them suitable for export quality because now no developed country wants to use the produce made from chemical fertilizers.

>What are the next steps after harvesting the paddy and what are the steps to be taken to preserve the paddy?

This is again a region-specific issue. So the most common method here is that farmers mix 1 kg or a little more salt in 10 liters of water and slowly put paddy seeds in this solution. The seeds that float on the surface of the water are discarded because these seeds are hollow. The seeds that settle down are removed, these seeds are the right ones.

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This solution can be used five to six times for purifying paddy seeds. The prepared seeds are washed three to four times with clean water and then sown. By adopting this method, farmers get half the crop. Rest of the work is left to rice mills, where they convert paddy into rice, and rice bran is used for extracting edible oil, which is an extra income for the rice farmers.

I can write much more about rice, its qualities, and how the farmers take better advantage but I will leave it to the experts and use my limited knowledge to enter this contest. Thank you all for reading my humble effort.
I invite @senehasa, josepha and @muzack to tell us about their understanding of rice farming.