PRE-PLANTING

Pre Planting Phase

This is the phase where farmers prepare for the establishment of their rice crop. This involves selection of well-adapted rice varieties and good-quality seed, careful land preparation, and proper management of rodents, insects, and crop residues and organic materials.

Selection of Rice Variety

Farmers are encouraged to use locally adapted varieties to ensure good crop establishment and high yield with acceptable grain quality for market.

Essentially, a variety should have:

• suitable grain quality, especially cooking characteristics, color, shape, taste and aroma, and head rice recovery. Head rice recovery is the weight percentage of head rice (whole grains with at least 75% of the whole undamaged milled rice kernel) from a sample of paddy. The quality should be acceptable to farmers and the local market at a price that is acceptable for them.
• adequate yield potential and stability over seasons.
• resistance or tolerance to major diseases, insects, and/or abiotic stresses (e.g., drought and flood) of the area.

The right duration of growth to match the season. Avoid varieties that need to be planted or harvested earlier or later than other surrounding ricefields. In nearby fields, avoid attack from pests (e.g., birds during maturation), and growth problems during times of harmful environmental conditions (e.g., late-maturing varieties running out of water)

• adequate tillering capacity to shade out weeds and produce a sufficient number of tillers for optimum yields.
• resistance to lodging under normal farmer management.
   

  Quality Seed

  A seed is a living product that must be grown, harvested, and processed correctly to maximize its viability and subsequent crop productivity. To achieve the yield potential of any rice variety, good-quality seed must be used. Good-quality seed can increase yields by 5–20%.

  Good seed is pure (of the chosen variety), full and uniform in size, viable (more than 80% germination with good seedling vigor), and free of weed seeds, seed-borne diseases, pathogens, insects, or other matter.

  Using good seed leads to lower seed rate, higher crop emergence (more than 70%), reduced replanting, more uniform plant stands, and more vigorous early crop growth. Vigorous growth in early stages reduces weed problems and increases crop resistance to insect pests and diseases.

  For more on quality seed, download the following pdf files from the Rice Knowledge Bank on the bottom left of the page.