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Post by oxbowfarm on Oct 13, 2013 21:17:03 GMT -5
Got into a spirited argument with a friend of mine about the appropriateness of rice vs corn for our local growing area. He is very actively experimenting with creating rice paddies and growing rice. Very much along the lines of this guy in Vermont. I'm having a hard time buying it. To me, rice is just poorly adapted to our bioregion. There are already corn varieties that are native and well adapted to grow here. Corn is easy to plant, easy to cultivate, easy to harvest, east to shell off the ear all by hand if need be. Rice requires a huge infrastructure investment in creating the ponds and the water management systems of pipes, canals, sluices etc before you can even plant your first crop. Then you have to individually transplant each plant into the mud, manage the water all season, drain the paddies harvest the rice, and figure out a way to hull it so you can eat it. Seems to me that the labor per calorie is just massively against rice here in the US where labor is expensive. I could be wrong.
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Post by steev on Oct 13, 2013 22:30:56 GMT -5
I'm till w iting to get rice from my upl nd unp ddied rice, hoping it will ripen before h rd fro t. Two key on my keybo rd don't work; did you notice?
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Post by khoomeizhi on Oct 14, 2013 5:28:21 GMT -5
re lly? h dn't noticed.
oxbow, i agree that there seems to be more labor needed for rice, especially on the front end where it hasn't been grown in the area. how did rice get hulled pre-mechanization?
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Post by oxbowfarm on Oct 14, 2013 6:06:07 GMT -5
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Post by ottawagardener on Oct 14, 2013 7:09:30 GMT -5
Rice is in the realm of novelty for me at the moment. Sorghum, chickpeas, amaranth intrigues me more though not as easy as corn to process.
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