The production technology of rice is a crucial and ever-evolving aspect of modern agriculture. As one of the world’s most essential staple foods, rice plays a vital role in feeding billions of people globally. The cultivation of rice involves a complex and intricate set of practices, methods, and technologies that aim to optimize yields while ensuring sustainability and environmental responsibility. From traditional farming techniques passed down through generations to cutting-edge innovations in seed breeding, irrigation, and pest management, the production technology of rice continues to evolve to meet the increasing demands of a growing population and the challenges posed by climate change and resource constraints.
Rice is the most important crop used in the world as a big source of food and it is a major export. Some challenges of rice production in these major areas are water, flooding, improper market prices, labor shortage, biotic stress water scarcity and low return. Many problems faced during the growing of rice as water management, weed control, and climate change play a major role.
Rice is an economically profitable crop if we do proper management and careful adaptation practices. area under rice is near to 160 million hacter globally with 480 metric tons per year average yield. it is estimated that 10-30% of rice yield is loose due to the improper management
Rice crops contain 25 species of which 23 species are wild means not able to be cultivated or acceptable to farmers and only two species Oryzea Sative and Oryzea glaberrima are used. Oryzea sativa is mostly cultivated in Asia and Europe and the Oryzea glam era is mostly cultivated in Africa only. if we look at the figures for rice then some leading countries in rice production, cultivation, and per hacter yield as India top on rice area with 41.84 million hacter, china top in rice production with 204 metric tons and Egypt top in rice productivity with approximately 10 tons per hacter.
Pakistan’s status in rice production is 2.96 million hacter with an annual production of 6.95 million tons. some areas famous for rice production in Pakistan are called rice belt or collar track as their name is Lahore, Sialkot, and hafiz bad. Rice is the third largest crop of Pakistan after wheat and cotton and the second staple food of Pakistan. Pakistan ranked 11 number rice-producing country
Six numbers in rice export globally with an average yield of 27 to 28 pounds per acre. The origin of rice is the young river of China and rice is a staple food of almost 500 million people in the world .114 countries produced rice in the world and Asia share 90 % contribution.
Rice morphology with key points:
Rice is an annual crop, short day crop with a jointed stem,3-6 ft tall, self-pollinated crop, long pointed leaves, contains seminal root with an adventurous root that arises from the basal point,10-20 internode, the stem of rice known hilum, contain leaf blade and leaf sheet, spikelets are the basic unit of rice and panicle developed in grain. The term paddy used in rice means unhusked rice or rice harvest for example if we have 40 kg of rice then 16 kg is husk and 24 kg is grain of rice. if we remove the husk then brown rice forms if again husked then white rice forms.
Aromatic rice and lowland Rice:
Aromatic rice produced a decent smell due to the presence of a chemical named acetyl-1-proylene. This rice used maximum water almost 4000-5000 liter water. rice has two types by area adaptation lowland and upland rice. Lowland rice has a high cost, level soil needed, irrigation application, mostly transplanted with stable yield. Upland rice has some properties such as terracing needed, low cost, depends upon rainfall, usually direct seed rice (DSR), and no stable yield.
Rice Ecotype:
Ecotype means the same species but different genetic makeup with agro geological adaptation. rice has three ecotypes India, japonica, and Janice. India has properties such as tall length, weak stem, and no fertilizer response. Japonica has characters as subtropics areas growing, dark leaves, and well fertilizers response. Jovani has some properties as grows only in Indonesia with long tillers.
Rice varieties:
Coarse variety: AARI 6, AARI 9, KSK 133, KSK 434
Basmati variety: Shaheen, kernel, and Khalid
Rice growth stages:
Rice crop has three sections growth stages vegetative stages, reproductive stages, and ripening stages. vegetative stages are tillering and stem elongation, reproductive stages are booting, flowering, and ripening stages are milking, grain formation, grain filling, and harvesting. These stages are lengthy descriptions so we mention just their name.
Soil and climate:
Rice is best grown in alluvial soil because it has a high water-holding capacity with high water retention power. It is grown in almost every type of soil except sandy soil because sandy soil has low water retention capacity so not suitable. clay soil is considered ideal soil because clay has high water-holding particles with ideal PH for rice. Rice is well grown in tropics that have high humidity, high rainfall, high sunshine, and high altitude and rice is a water love crop. temperature range is 25-35 degrees centigrade for well rice production
Seed rate and sowing Nursery:
The seed rate for the wet method is 6-7kg per acre and the dry method is 8-10 kg per acre mostly 8 Marla pantry is used for one acre. Rice variety varies as fine rice has 4-5 kg per acre and coarse rice 8 kg per acre. use seed always mixed with any 2-gram fungicides Remember 15 July is the last transplanted time of rice. sowing time for the basmati variety of rice is 01 June -20 June and for other varieties 20 May -7 June.
Method of sowing rice nursery:
1. Wet bed nursery
This method is used in this area where sufficient or low amount of water is present .in this method level the field then irrigation apply to prepare the field before two weeks of rice sowing .in this method seeds are broadcast on puddle soil with a sufficient amount of fertilizers and manure. we care nursery near 15-21 days then we transplanted it.
2. Dry bed nursery
Prepare beds In this method we used paddy husk for easy uprooting of seedlings. puddling is not possible due to water shortage and the transplanting depth is 2-3cm. disadvantages of this method are roots are damaged and more pest attack
3. Bubble tray nursery:
For the bubble nursery, we used plastic trays. the size of plastic trays is 59cm by 34cm and more than 400 holes are embedded used. we used 300 nursery trays These trays are watered regularly and after 25 -30 days after sowing seedlings are ready for transplanting. it has many advantages as requires less area, easy pulling, easy handling, and minimum losses.
Fertilizers:
Incorporation of green manure crops as manure and half dose of nitrogen with phosphorous and potassium is applied at the time of the first plow and half dose of nitrogen is applied by top dressing within 30-35 days. Puddling time 1.5 bags of urea,4.5 bags SSP, and 1.5 bags of potassium sulfate and half bag at the time of transplanting
Weeds management:
Rice crops have lost 15-30 % due to weeds. Three group types of weeds are present in the rice field grass family sedge family and broad family. Grass families include swanky, kanal grass, and nark grass. The Sedges family contains a deli and boring grass. The broad family contains Marchi and Daria. we recommended some weedicides such as pendimethalin 1KG /ha before five days of sowing and Sabena plus precordial 0.45 kg /ha used. we can also use IWM as a collection of cultural, mechanical, chemical, and biological approaches.
Pest management and disease of rice;
Rice nursery is susceptible to borer attack till 20 May. Some borer attacks in rice crops are white borer, yellow borer, stem borer, and pink borer we can control them by use of Novacron, Tamarin, and Ezadorien pesticides. Pheromones are used to trap borer in rice crops as sex pheromones to attract male borer and pheromones are effective against snorers and leafhoppers. Biological control used as Predatory Beetles Spiders and pathogenic fungi such as Metaehizium useful against rice stem borer.
Diseases of rice are blast disease, brown spot, stem rot, and foot root or bakain. Blast disease sign leaf diamond shape, lesion on leave, and neck blast. Brown spot sign black lesion on leave and tillering. Stem root sign plant dead at grain filling time and white empty spaces with yellow leaves.
Harvesting:
After 27-39 days of flowering harvesting starts. Harvesting is done manually or by combined harvesting. There are some losses during harvesting is lodging losses, shatter losses, separation losses and thrashing losses Rice’s average yield is 27 -35 mounds /acre
Ali Haider, Muhammad Zahid, Muhammad Usama, Noor Fatima, Abdul Qayyum, Mazhar Hussain, Muhammad Anus Aleem Joyia
University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan
