Farmer Gets Good Yield From Submergence Tolerant Rice
A Filipino nurse in Saudi Arabia went back to San Antonio, Nueva Ecija to manage the 40-hectare farm of his in-laws. But to hi dismay, he can’t grow rice in 10 ha. during wet season due to flood.
He is Gelises Ladores of Barangay Sto. Cristo. For 19 years, he said, he doesn’t plant during wet season because when flood occurs, the fields would be submerged for as long as 15 days and the water reaches waist level.
The luck of this 52-year-old farmer started to improve only in the 2008 wet season. He learned of the flood tolerant rice Swarna-Sub1, which can survive 10 days of complete submergence at vegetative stage, matures in 130-134 days, and grows as high as 75 cm-85 cm. He even went to PhilRice’s on-farm testing of submergence rice in Barangay Papaya to learn the technology.
Ladores planted 130 kg of Swarna-Sub 1 seeds in 1.5 ha, and harvested more than 100 cavans weighing 70 kg each. He stored 1.5 cavans of seeds for the next wet season and had the remaining harvest threshed and sold at P14/kg.
“I didn’t expect that Swarna-Sub 1 would yield that much. My only concern that time was to get yield from my submerged field,” Ladores said, adding that Swarna-Sub 1 requires less fertilizer than other varieties, has bigger stem, heavier when threshed, and has good eating quality.
This wet season, Ladores planted Swarna-Sub 1 in 21 ha. And to prevent incurring losses, he had Swarna-Sub 1 direct-seeded in May to make sure that the crops are strong enough to tolerate stress when flood occurs and for it to be ready for harvest by October.
Ladores also tried the flood-tolerant IR64-Sub 1 in 0.5 ha, but he harvested only 12 cavans due to rats and diseases.
“I prefer Swarna-Sub 1 over other varieties for the wet season. But if there are Sub 1 varieties better than SwarnaSub1, then I would also want to try them,” he added.
Ladores is thankful that submergence rice varieties like the Swarna-Sub 1 are being developed. It is indeed a big help to farmers in low-lying areas, he said. If not for Swarna-Sub l, he would not be able to double his annual rice production, which gives him more income to support the college education of his two children.
By Hanah Hmm Biag
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