How rice is grown and harvested

Most of the world's rice is still transplanted by hand, one bundle of seedlings at a time, into flooded fields.

stations: 3
things downstream: 5

The short version

Rice starts as seedlings raised in a nursery bed and then planted into a flooded paddy. The crop is harvested when the grain holds 20 to 25% moisture. Stalks are cut and stacked, threshed to knock the grain loose, cleaned by winnowing or screening, and dried quickly so that mold cannot grow.

Transplant the seedlings

Seed can be scattered straight onto the field, which needs 60 to 80 kilograms per hectare. Transplanting seedlings from a bed needs only around 40 kilograms per hectare but far more labor, and most rice in Asia is still transplanted by hand.

about 40 kg of seed per hectare
Flood the paddy

Paddy fields are kept under water for much of the season. Long flooding stops oxygen from reaching the soil, so organic matter ferments and releases methane. Wetting and drying in turn can cut those emissions by up to 90%.
Reap, thresh and dry

Once the grain reaches 20 to 25% moisture, it is reaped, stacked, threshed and winnowed. The paddy rice is dried as soon as possible, traditionally in the sun on mats or pavements, to a level that is safe from mold fungi.

End of the lineRice Next it goes into beer, sake, white rice and 1 more.

Worth repeating

Rice was first domesticated in China about 9,000 years ago.
Yuan Longping set a yield record in 1999 of 17.1 metric tons per hectare, against a world average of 4.7 in 2022.
Rice ranks third among all crops by production, behind sugarcane and maize.