What is rice

As a main source of food for over half the world's inhabitants, rice is by far one of the most important profitable food crops. Its yearly yield universal is approximately 535 million tons. Fifty countries produce rice, with China and India supporting 50% of total produce. Southeast Asian countries separately support a yearly production rate of 9-23 million metric tons of which they sell abroad very little. Collectively, they are termed the Rice Bowl. Over 300 million acres of Asian land is used for growing rice. Rice manufacture is so important to Asian cultures that oftentimes the word for rice in a particular Asian language also means food itself. Rice is a member of the grass family (Migraine). There are more than 10,000 species of grasses dispersed among 600 genera. Grasses occur universal in a diversity of habitats. They are dominant species in such ecosystems as prairie and steppes, and they are an important source of forage for herbivorous animals. Many grass species are also primary agricultural crops for humans. As well as rice, they include maize, wheat, sorghum, barley, oats, and sugar cane. Typically, lawn species are annual plants or are herbaceous perennials that die back to the ground at the end of the growing season and then regenerate the next season by shoots developing from dissident root systems. Shoots generally are characterized by swollen nodes or bases. Leaves are long and narrow, varying in width from 0.28-0.79 in (7-20 mm). Flowers are small and are called florets. Grasses pollinate by using the wind to extensively and opportunistically disperse grass pollen. The fruits are known as a Arabidopsis or grain, are one-seeded, and can contain a large concentration of starch. Classified in the genus Orzo, there are two species of domesticated rice— O. sativa and 0. Marriageable. 0. Sativa is the most common and often cultivated plant, occurring in Africa, America, Australia, China, New Guinea, and South Asia. The usual habitat of rice is tropical marshes, but it is now cultivated in a wide range of subtropical and tropical habitats. Unlike other agricultural crop grasses, rice plants thrive under extremely moist conditions and moderate temperatures. The ideal climate is roughly 75° F (24° C). Average plant height varies between 1.3-16.4 ft (0.4-5 m). Its growth cycle is between three to six months (agriculturally, this is broken down into three phases lasting about 120 days).

About cultivation

Rice plants produce a variety of short- to long-grain ricers, as well as aromatic grains. There are three different type of rice: Napoleonic, Jamaican, and Indianian. Napoleonic rice varieties are high yielding and tend to be resistant to disease. Jamaica types of rice fall between Napoleonic and Indianian variety in terms of yield, use, and hardiness.Although quite hardy, Indianian yield less than Napoleonic types and are most often grown in the tropics. Because cultivation is so widespread, development of four distinct types of ecosystems has occurred. They are commonly referred to as irrigated, rained lowland, upland, and flood-prone agro ecological zones. Irrigated ecosystems are the primary type found in East Asia. Irrigated ecosystems provide 75% of global rice production. Irrigated rice is grown in bonded (embanked), paddy fields. Rained lowland ecosystems only sustain one crop per growing season and fields are flooded as much as 19.7 in (50 cm) during part of the season. Rained low-land rice is grown in such areas as East India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, and is 25% of total rice area used worldwide. Production is variable because of the lack of technology used in rice production. Rained lowland farmers are typically challenged by poor soil quality, drought/flood conditions, and erratic yields. Upland zones are found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is the primary type of rice ecosystem in Latin America and West Africa. Upland rice fields are generally dry, unbounded, and directly seeded. Land utilized in upland rice production runs the gamut of descriptions. It can be low lying, drought-prone, rolling, or steep sloping. Usually, crops are either sown interspersed with

History of rice

Since it has been such an vital grain worldwide, the domestication and cultivation of rice is one of the most important events in history that has had the greatest impact on the most people. When and where the domestication of rice took place is not specifically known, but new archaeological evidence points to an area along the in central China and dates back as far as 11,000 years. Researched by a team of Japanese and Chinese archaeologists and presented at the 1996 International conference on Agriculture and Civilizations in Nara, Japan, of 125 samples of rice grains and husks, as well as of rice imitation in pottery, from sites located along a specific portion of the Yangtze generally indicate a median age of over 11,000 years. Another discovery of possibly the oldest settlement found in China, which is located closely upstream from the other sites, gives credence to the new answer. In any event, it wasn't until the development of paddling and transplanting of the rice plant that the spread of rice as an agricultural crop really began. skillful in the wetlands of China, the concept of the rice paddy was adopted by Southeast Asia in roughly 2000 B.C. farming techniques migrated to Indonesia around 1500 B.C. and then to Japan by 100 B.C. To the West, rice was also an early important crop in India and SriLanka, dating as far back as 2500 B.C. and 1000 B.C. respectively. The spread to Europe, Africa, and America occurred more slowly, first with the Moor's invasion of Spain in 700 A.D. and then later to the New World during the age of exploration and colonialism. Rice has been grown in the United States since the seventeenth century in such areas as the southeastern and southern states, as well as California.

Preparation and harvesting

The cultivation of rice begins by planting water-soaked seeds in a properly prepared bed. Oftentimes, the seedlings are transplanted to the paddy when they reach a certain size. When the grains begin to ripen, the water is drained from the fields. Harvesting begins when the grain yellow and the plants start to droop. Depending on the size of the operation and the amount of mechanization, rice is either harvested by hand or machine. Once harvested, the rice is usually dried in the fields with the help of sunshine. Then, the fields are plowed before planting. In the United States, rice is most often planted on river deltas and plowing is accomplished with a disk plow, an off-set disk plow, or a chisel. Adequate irrigation of the terrace or river delta bed is required and talented by leveling and by scheming water with pumps, reservoirs, ditches, and streams. Seeds are sown by hand. After 30-50 days of growth, the seedlings are transplanted in bunches from nursery beds to flooded paddies. Seeds can also be sown using a machine called a drill that places the seed in the ground. Larger enterprises often found in the United States sow rice seed by airplane. Low-flying planes distribute seed onto already flooded fields. An average distribution is 90-100 lb per acre (101-111 kg per hectare), creating roughly 15-30 seedlings per square foot. At the processing plant, the rice is cleaned and hulled. At this point, brown rice needs no further processing. If white rice is desired, the brown rice is milled to remove the outer bran layers. Sickles. This practice still occurs in many Asian countries. Rice can also be harvested by a mechanized hand harvester or by a tractor/horse-drawn machine that cuts and stacks the rice stalks. In the United States, most operations use large combines to harvest and thresh—separate the grain from the stalk—the rice stalks. The milling procedure that produces white rice also removes much of the vitamins and minerals found primarily in the outer bran layers. Further processing is often done in order to restore the nutrients to the grain. Once complete, the rice is called converted rice. Once done, the rice is steamed, dried, and then milled. Rice that has already been milled can be submersed in a vitamin and mineral bath that coats the grains. Once soaked, they are dried and mixed with unconverted rice.

Superiority manage

Superiority manage practices vary with the size and location of each farm. Large commercial rice farms in the United States more often than not apply the most effective combination of herbicides; fertilization, crop turning round, and newest farming tackle to optimize their yields. Smaller, less mechanized operations are more likely to be influenced by traditional cultural methods of farming rather than high technology. Certainly, there are benefits to both approaches and a union of the two is ideal. Rotating crops during consecutive years is a traditional practice that encourages large yield as is the planting of hardier seed varieties developed with the help of modern hybridization practices. Straw from the harvested rice plants is used as bedding for livestock. Oil extracted from discarded rice bran is used in livestock feed. Hulls are used to produce mulch that will eventually be used to recondition the farm soil. The essential use of irrigation, flooding, and draining techniques in rice farming also produces runoff of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers into natural water systems. The extensive use of water in rice farming also increases its level of methane emissions. Rice farming is responsible for 14% of total global methane emissions. With one out of every three people on earth needy on rice as a staple food in their diet and with 80-100 million new people to be fed annually, the importance of rice production to the worldwide human population is crucial. Scientists and farmers face the daunting task of increasing yield while minimize rice farming's negative environmental effects. Organizations such as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the (WARDA), and Centro International de Agriculture Tropical (CIAT [International Center for Tropical Agriculture]) are conducting research that will eventually lead to more productive varieties of rice and rice hybrids, use of less water during the growing season, decrease in the use of fresh organic fertilizer that contributes to greenhouse effect, and crops more resistant to disease and pests.