Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Sunday, August 22, 2010

when the rice drowned

readers will be happy to know that the rice we planted survived the initial drowing to sprout well and sturdy.

we had 45 minutes of high intensity rain on the morning of 20th and here is our paddy field.

under 1.5 feet of water.

there was still some hope that the rice would survive (miracle, if it did) it the waters receded in 24 hours.
then august 21st saw continued rains.
it is likely that the field will remain under water for at least a week.

effectively that would mean that our paddy experiment has been washed away.
sad as it could be, the rains always take priority and after all we planted in a pond, who's primary karma is to store water.

as a back up, we had planted a paddy nursery a week ago.
if it works, then we may still do a paddy transplant in the SAME field...
you have to hand it to us for persistence :-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

rice is one of the few plants that can thrive in water, and survive drowning. Unless the seedlings have been washed to one end of the pond by the force of water, i think they should do fine.

csm said...

anon - rice thrives under flooding conditions, not drowning conditions.
the saplings were less than a couple of inches high and they are currently under 18 inches of water. for more than 72 hours now.
and do check the TN weather reports. it has been raining for 2 days now and likely to continue for more.
i like your optimism, but we have written it off.