Rice harvest
Written by: adekun on 24 September, 2008 1:43 pm - Filed under: blog ?
Shigeki-san sporty a straw Stetson
Juggling people’s work commitments and the weather, meant it took a public holiday to harvest the rice. It was Autumnal Equinox Day and very overcast too. Shigeki-san had already harvested one of the smaller fields. This left the two large fields, one of which had a smaller adjoining counterpart. With a late morning start and the threat of rain, Shigeki spent most of the time at the controls. I was porter.
Beginning to harvest the final field
I did take a few turns. Perhaps a few too many, manoeuvring to assault the rows of rice. Although it had been a year, the cumbersome bags soon became familiar. Thirty-odd went to the rice store to be sold. At the weigh-in 1056.6 kg was recorded. This left over two dozen bags to be retained for the coming year.
It’s much easier with the harvester, despite this, I’d very much like to learn the traditional method. Whilst there’s plenty of harvesters milling around, there’s also a good amount of evidence in the fields that the older methods are still practised. We got finished before the rain, which was in time for my long cycle back.
Cookware Sets
26 September, 2008 #
What are the advantages of using the old methods of harvesting versus the new? I can understand the amount of time saved in the process, but is it better on the land to use the old methods? Are there still plenty of people who know how to do this and would be willing to do this?
Chris
28 September, 2008 #
Traditional methods are fun to learn but most likely arduous in nature. That’s why the machines are there =D make life much easier.
TopVeg
28 September, 2008 #
I always imagined that rice growing land must be scarce in Japan. Do most families have some land for their own rice production?
kevin
29 September, 2008 #
Traditional methods are fun and also give a sense of accomplishment - if you have the time to complete the field
With the size of the field you were working on, I think you are glad to have the combine. However, even though it is faster with the combine, with smaller field, it can be more economical to do it by hand than to pay for the machines.
Around here, some people use big combines like the one in your photo, which does everything at once (harvest, dry, bag) and also grinds up the straw to leave it as mulch for the next year. They also use a smaller hand pushed “binder” which harvest and ties the rice into bundles still on the straw. They then hang the rice to dry. This is nice because after wards you still have the straw - which was *really* valuable in the old days and used for lots of things. Now people don’t use it so much, but they can sell it to the cow farmer.
We harvested our fields by hand taking two of us four days. We are happy to have the straw though as we have quite a few ways to use it next year. Now we just have to find someplace to store it.
adekun
29 September, 2008 #
Out here at least it is fairly rural (despite being a city) and a good majority of families have a rice field. A big co-operative/corporation owns a lot of land and doesn’t readily release it for development. It’s kind of funny, there’s often a rice field sandwiched between apartment buildings or something similar.