Along with a "Parents morning" at kindergarten and one full day of work on Sunday, the remainder of my weekend was spent helping out with "rice seed planting". This not to be confused with "rice planting" and is something which is gradually being done less and less by the Japanese rice farmers. These days those who have small rice fields, who have limited time etc. generally just buy trays of "ready to plant" rice seedlings, but at our house....... every year we have the big "rice seed planting" day. In the past this involved having about 8 family members to help on a chain gang, but with the addition of a fancy rice seed planting machine last year, it can all be done with just 2 or 3 people. Anyway, for anyone interested here is a basic idea of what is done.
Day One: special soil is put into seed trays, evened out and then stacked. this year we made 250 trays.
Day Two:
The trays of soil are fed into the machine on a convey belt (this was my job this year!) where they are first covered with seeds and then covered again with soil. The finished trays are then laid out on the ground, watered and covered with shade cloth until the first seedlings emerge (probably in the next day or two). And that is basically it - until rice planting season of course......
Day One: special soil is put into seed trays, evened out and then stacked. this year we made 250 trays.
Day Two:
The trays of soil are fed into the machine on a convey belt (this was my job this year!) where they are first covered with seeds and then covered again with soil. The finished trays are then laid out on the ground, watered and covered with shade cloth until the first seedlings emerge (probably in the next day or two). And that is basically it - until rice planting season of course......
That is exactly what my senior coworker and I talked about future of Japanese farming yesterday.
ReplyDeleteJapan has serious problem about the devastation of farm and the lack of succeed.
My husband gave up farming because he doesn't like it.
I think your parents of law are so lucky because son and his family help their farming.
And you are lucky because you can get the large field for make some farm product.
Aaaaaaaaand then, I am lucky because I can get many knowledge of farming from you.
I can not use mail system in my office all the day.
I hear that the server is crash now.