Last edited on 3 Feb 2024. View history
Rice
How to sow rice: Seedlings
Sun requirement for rice: Plant in Full Sun
Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa. It is a cereal grain that can come in many shapes, colors, and sizes. Rice requires ample water and is labor-intensive to cultivate. Water-controlling terrace systems enable it to be grown almost anywhere. The traditional method of cultivating rice is to flood the fields during or after setting the young seedlings. Rice can be grown without flooding, but flooding simplifies weed and pest control.
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Rice facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For rice, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 10°C and a shortest growing cycle of 80 days at its best temperature, about 1200 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your rice will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Photos
PhotosRice crops
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Oryza sativa L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Liliopsida Commelinidae Cyperales Gramineae |
|---|---|
| Life form | grass |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | wide |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | poorly (saturated >50% of year) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | neutral day (12-14 hours) |
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