Hello everyone, welcome back to my farming diary.
After broadcasting my rice seeds in the nursery, there is one essential thing that I usually do to keep the seeds from birds and rodents, and that is to use dry grass to cover the rice as a safety plan against these animals.
Freshly sown seeds normally attract a large number of birds that come to feed on them, and the idea of covering them with too much soil to prevent the birds from seeing is usually not good cause the seeds end up struggling to grow.
That is why farmers have come up with an unorthodox method to keep the seeds safe until germination is complete.
The cover serves several important purposes:
Now, while the use of the grass as a cover protects the seeds, it does a whole lot more than just protecting them; the grass also prevents too much loss of water from the soil, especially in regions where the sun can be so hot at some points in the year.
Another very important addition is the increase in soil fertility since the decomposition of the grass itself adds rich organic elements to the ground that will help the rice grow well.
After some days, once the seedlings have started to grow, we can easily move whatever is left from the grass off the seedlings to allow it the much-needed space and sunlight that it needs to grow just like any other green plant.
We as farmers don't always follow textbook approaches to solving every challenge that we encounter on the farm; sometimes we have to be a little flexible and unorthodox in our thinking in order to get the best results possible.
Thank you for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing more updates as these rice seedlings continue to grow.
