Rice Planting in Kashiwa, Japan – May 23, 2009

For the first time in my life, I saw rice being planted!

When I went outside early this morning, I noticed the back field, which has been flooded for about a week, had been drained and was full of thick mud.

A little before 9am, a rice planting machine drove up the path from the next farm over. The neighboring farmers work as a co-op and each farmer owns a different machine in for the planting process, and each does their part. The landlord and all the neighboring farmers gathered around and loaded up the planting machine with trays of baby rice plants. Before the last frost, the rice had been planted directly into the trays and grown in plastic-covered tunnels.

The planter rapidly separated the rice in the tray and planted individual springs into the ground. A little wheel on an arm sat on the side of the machine and marked the mud to assist the farmer in aligning the rows.

In movies I have watched of rice being planted, I’ve noticed that there are usually corners left behind that must be hand-planted. However, there were no corners left in our field to be hand-planted! Not only did the machine turn on a dime, it was as if the field was created for the dimensions of the particular machine.

With the gears and the trays of rice on the back of the machine, it was back-heavy. Three farmers had to climb onto the front of the machine as it ascended the small ramp out of the field, in order to counter-balance the weight.

Today’s rice planting was the most amazing, efficient planting of any kind I have ever seen. As an amateur gardener, I was fascinated. The whole planting process took less than 10 minutes.

Kashiwa rice is one of the most delicious varieties of short grain rice in the world.