HELLO HIVE
As rewarding as rice farming is it also comes with it's own shares of challenges, this challenges makes our job more difficult with a lot of back and forth on the best thing to do.
A common yet frustrating issue that rice farmers encounter is when rice plants fall over into the mud during production time when the top part of the plant should not be exposed to that kind of the water because of the seed and this ultimately impacts the yield and farmers profitability.
why do rice plants fall at this stage?
There are four common causes of this occurrence and the first one is weak stalk of the rice plant which Carrie's the heavy part of the plant bearing the seeds and this is a result of the kind of variety that we've planted .
Weather conditions that is accompanied by heavy rainfall and wind also drag the plant into the mud .
Poor water management system also causes the roots of the plant to be weak affecting the plants ability to support it self
Over fertilization makes it weak and unbalanced causing the upper region of the become heavier than the lower part of the plant causing an unbalanced in the plants growth system.
How do we stop and control this from happening?
The weather isn't something we can actually control so that part would be difficult to control but there are other things that we can infact control
We can start with the variety of rice we are plant with long grain rice that happen to grow tall being planted in farms that does not have much much and the more strong variety in the muddy areas of the farm.
Improved water management system and a more balanced fertilizer application will also help improve their roots and stalk making the plant strong and more resistant to falling in the mud.