System Of Rice Intensification

[cooked]

..or SRI. Has anybody done a trial? There was a thread in 2006 about it which was critical of this method, research since then has shown positive results. The main advantages (apart from the increased yield that is claimed) are reduced use of fertiliser and water, but weeding should be done by hand. Anybody know the group near Surin that went for this?

I might launch myself into a small plot (no splash, it won't flooded) if I can get enough information. I believe there is a Thai research group somewhere?

I should imagine that some machinery investment would be necessary. My SIL as well as my wife will need persuading.

[IsaanAussie]

It is a really good idea. The seed usage is down so better seed can be used, plus the fertilisers etc... I looked at this a few years back really seriously. I looked at second hand rice planters, the whole deal. What stops me is the ability to irrigate and drain our main paddy fields. So it will have to wait until that lottery ticket falls from the sky and I can afford the earthworks to convert low laying rain feed land into a pond dyke system.

Like you mate, might just give a small patch a shot near the pond just for the hell of it. Must dig all that information up again.

Actually your timing is spot on. I just posted on the agri investment thread about what amounts to the same thing.

[cooked]

I've been reading the literature little that is available. As I understand it green manure 40 - 50 days before rice planting is required, I can get Mung beans for ฿20.- / Kg (retail) so would go for that. I am in the same situation as regards irrigation as you but the pond is quite large.

On a 500M2 plot I would be ok planting and weeding by hand, so no machine investment yet.

Will try to get my wife on the case, at the moment she says she has been working rice for 25 years and isn't open minded about it.

[IsaanAussie]

One point should be stressed. The land must be levelled very well.

I would be trying about the same size plot. Still got a bag of mung beans here somewhere and some other sort of beans I got given. What is good is the plot I have has been fallow for 4 years so it is perfect for testing the soil improvement side of it as well.

Hey look at that a transplanter ad on my screen! No thanks, importing from China is definitely off my can do list...

[cooked]

I have an old surveyors' level here.

I didn't think about leveling, I had imagined a pump + sprinkler system or would this be insufficient? Easy enough to see when rice plants are thirsty.

I would have to drive the pump up there every time, they tend to disappear.

In the pictures that I have seen, the guys are still planting by hand (but on a 30 x 30cm grid) and my wife reckons that planters don't give as good a result as doing it by hand.

500M2 would be about 5000 plants so that doesn't sound too bad. I have planted 2000 flower seedlings in a day before now.

This obviously needs some discussion and a field trip to chat with Thais that are already doing it.

[sbf]

I am also interested in the SRI approach, and find both the wife and MIL very responsive, since some of the techniques being put forward in the technique are ones that were traditionally used in Thai rice culture. We have an on-going family debate regarding the benefits of transplant versus direct seeding for instance.

They of course see the advantage in using less seed etc. So we are going to try SRI with one of the paddies this coming season. In all the info I have read or you tubed this is exactly what the SRI proponents recommend. As we are on a sloping site we will use the top paddy where it will be easiest to control water. It is also the one with the poorest yield, and heaviest weed infestation so I have great hopes that it will really show some improvements, we will see.

One point on the rice transplanter, it seems to me with my reading of the SRI that one of the key aspects of it all is the very accurately spaced and early transplanting with avoidance of transplant shock being key and hence the emphasis on getting seedlings in within a very short time of being lifted from the seed-beds. I wonder how machines would cope with the very small seedlings, and if they will deliver them into the ground in a delicate enough manner to avoid the transplant shock SRI stresses so much as necessary to have in order to maximise the tillering time of the plant.

[JungleBiker]

These people in New York are probably the main promoters of SRI around the world http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/aboutsri/methods/index.html

If you like, you can mix and match SRI methods with other rice growing methods - see here http://www.irri.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=11949:system-of-rice-intensification-summary〈=en

I am involved with a project in Laos that is promoting SRI. Issues include getting the farmers to plant in straight rows (so that they can later go down the rows with a mechanical/rotary weeding machine without destroying the rice plants); the need to weed more often because without the flooding more weeds grow (in fact the only reason rice is flooded is to control weeds; like most grasses and cereal crops rice actually grows better when it is not standing in water all the time); more problems with the pests that don't like flooding. As mentioned already, the benefits can include higher yields, and less seed and water needed.

[rice555]

Hello All, depending on the size of your growing area and SRI growing

advice, besides using a Cano weeder, see TV thread:

Cono Weeder Started by tingtong, 2011-07-06 14:58

I don't know how their growing worked out? But if you google the weeder

most adds are from India, but they also have hand multi row seeders that

you can direct seed in a grid spacing skipping the nursery/transplanting

out of the growing process, but you have to be able to control the water

supply.

rice555