RICE + PADDY AGRICULTURE
A subset of our underutilized crops page, this area focuses solely on rice and paddy systems as an agricultural option for extremely short and cold locations like Vermont, zone 3 to 5 USDA and for hilly locations where terracing is crucial.
We are in our third season of growing short grain brown rice via fertigated paddies terraced on a steep hillside composed of very poor sandy and clay subsoil. We research various methods of water management (rice is basically all about water management!) by applying different treatments to each paddy. We are also researching and developing hulling approaches. We offer rice-specific tours to many people interested in growing this exciting, climate-change adaptable staple crop on their own sites.
Links to information about our rice work:
7 Days Vermont Article on Rice Growing and WSD
Some photos:
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It took almost a year to figure out how we were going to process the crop - dehulling is a challenge (threshing and winnowing are easy). After months of research sporadically and an attempt to make a dehuller with my wood lathe I was not far, having little time to produce such equipment in the shop (it's doable I am sure). Come this spring I went to pick up an old wood cook stove in Athens Vermont. There, I encountered a barn full of old treasures. Among the lanes of human-powered equipment was a two-man rice dehuller made in Osaka, Japan. Looked like it had never been used. The guy sold it to me and finally I (actually Buzz) figured out how to use it. We continue to tweak it but have gotten to very clean grains pretty quickly. The Mad River Valley rice processing station is now open.