Rice Planting Time

 

          (Please note that I am not a farmer, nor am I Japanese.  The account below is as seen through the eyes of a foreigner who has never even been a gardener.  If I am wrong in some aspects, I would very much appreciate it if you could send in a correction.  Thank you.)

 

     In the spring is time to plant rice.  Where I live, I’ve heard that the time is decided by watching the snow on the mountains.  When the snow starts melting on the nearby mountains, and you can see lines of grey earth in the white snow (watch out for the tricky late snow that sometimes falls in early April),  and the cherry blossoms are blooming, it is time to plow the rice field.

 

          First the field is flooded.  The rice fields around here tend to

have a hard earth with much clay in it, not the softer topsoil used for other types of crops.  The farmers flood the fields and leave them flooded for a few days, apparently to soften the earth.

 

          In this area, as well as in most agricultural areas of Japan, there is an extensive system of irrigation canals.  Rice fields have to have gates to the canal system to allow them to be flooded when needed, and also so the water can be turned off when desired.  The watergates to individual

fields are often very simple, perhaps a piece of board covered with a piece from a tough plastic bag.  The rice fields tend to be laid out one slightly lower than the one before, so that they maintain a level relative to the slowly declining irrigation canal.

 

          After the field has been flooded for a week or so, the farmers will till the ground with a tractor and

plow, and let it sit again for another week or so.  Then it is time to plant.  The rice is started in greenhouses, and grown to a few centimeters high.  It is grown in shallow platic trays, which can be carried easily to the fields, and loaded into the planting machine.  The planting machine takes the place of the traditional backbreaking work of planting the rice shoots by hand.  It does the job very quickly and evenly, all except for the corners of the field, which must still be planted by hand.

 

Farming is very much a family business here.  The fields are fairly small, but the work is hard and in the planting, pruning and harvesting seasons, everyone has to pitch in to get the job done.  Many farmers can't afford such expensive farming equipment, so the farmers' assosiation buys farm equipment that the farmers can rent.

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