Harvest more rice with ratooning
Friday, October 24th, 2008
Harvest more rice with ratooning
by Junelyn S.de la Rosa
January-March 2004
Bar Digest
Farmers can harvest more rice and gain more income by ratooning or double harvest- an indigenous practice in rice farming that induces the formation of shoots or ratoons from the mother crop after the previous growth has been cut back.
Scientists from the Philippine Rice Institute (PhilRice) at the Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija found that ratooning resulted to higher gross returns at P36,550.00 per hectare. This is higher by P19,585.00 than that of the farmers’ practice. The higher gross returns were attributed to higher yield and lower production cost. The experiment was conducted in a rainfed ricefield during the 2002 wet season.
The scientists also reported that hybrid rice (Magilas) was superior in terms of yield than other rice varieties- Mestizo, PSB Rc14 and PSB Rc12. Magilas yielded 13 tons per hectare followed by Mestizo at 10.3 tons per hectare to PSB Rc14 10.5 tons per hectare and PSB Rc12 at 9.2 tons per hectare. (more…)
