perennial

People have been cultivating rice for more than 9,000 years. Cultivated rice is an annual crop which is often extended to two crops a year by a process called ratooning, which is cutting back annual rice to obtain a second, weaker harvest.

An extensive project involving multiple institutions in China, the U.S., and Australia has been developing perennial rice. The researchers developed it through hybridization, crossing a type of Asian domesticated annual rice with a wild perennial rice from Africa. Using modern genetic tools to identify candidate plants, the team identified a promising hybrid in 2007, planted large-scale field experiments in 2016, and released the first commercial perennial rice variety, called PR23, in 2018.

The researchers spent five years studying the performance of the perennial rice alongside annual rice on farms in China’s Yunnan Province. For the most part, the yield of the perennial rice was equivalent to that of annual rice over a period of four years.

Because farmers don’t have to plant rice each season, growing perennial rice requires almost 60% less labor and saves nearly half the costs of seed, fertilizer, and other inputs.

Perennial rice is already changing the lives of more than 55,000 smallholder farmers in southern China and Uganda. The economic benefits vary by location, but overall profit increases ranged from 17% to 161% over annual rice.

There are already three perennial rice varieties available to farmers, but researchers aren’t done refining the crop. They plan to use their methodology to enhance traits such as aroma, disease resistance, and drought tolerance to newer versions.

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Farmers in China, Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice

Photo, posted February 25, 2002, courtesy of Matthieu Lelievre via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

No-till farming is not new. In fact, it was used as far back as 10,000 years ago. But during the 18th and 19th centuries, tilling became popular because it allowed farmers to plant seeds more efficiently.

Tilling (or ploughing) is the process of preparing the soil for the cultivation of seeds by overturning the soil. The practice works animal manure, weeds, and other surface residues deep into the soil. While this all sounds like a good thing, it’s not.

Tilling removes plant matter and loosens the soil, leaving the soil bare and vulnerable to erosion. Tilling also displaces the millions of microbes and insects that form healthy soil biology. The long-term use of tilling can turn healthy soils into lifeless growing mediums dependent on chemical inputs.

But no-till farming also tends to rely on chemical inputs like glyphosate for weed control. According to a new study recently published in Agronomy Journal, researchers at Penn State have found that farmers using no-till farming can reduce herbicide use and still maintain crop yields by implementing integrated weed-management methods.

The research team conducted a nine-year experiment using herbicide-reduction practices in a crop rotation, which included soybean, corn, alfalfa, and canola. Some of the practices used to reduce herbicide inputs included seeding small-grain companion crops with perennials, and plowing once in six years to terminate the perennial forage rather than killing it with an herbicide.

While there was more weed biomass in the reduced herbicide treatment, the researchers found that the added weed pressure did not substantially affect crop yields.

It is possible to make agriculture more environmentally-friendly and sustainable without sacrificing productivity.

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No-till production farmers can cut herbicide use, control weeds, protect profits

Photo, posted February 11, 2019, courtesy of the United Soybean Board via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Perennial Rice | Earth Wise

People have been cultivating rice for more than 9,000 years. Cultivated rice is an annual crop which is often extended to two crops a year by a process called ratooning, which is cutting back annual rice to obtain a second, weaker harvest.

Web Links

The Benefits Of No-Till Farming | Earth Wise

No-till farming is not new. In fact, it was used as far back as 10,000 years ago. But during the 18th and 19th centuries, tilling became popular because it allowed farmers to plant seeds more efficiently.

Web Links