Rice Survivor (Wet Season edition): Choose your own adventure

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I'm participating in this wet season's "Rice Survivor" activity. The question that worries me the most is: will the plants I tend this season survive? :) It's going to be a challenging time, this wet season...

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June 6, 2013


"You've got to get it right at the start..." 
-- James Quilty, Rice Survivor, Dry Season (heard on IRRI Radio)

Well, I can't say that we, the wet season Rice Survivors, weren't warned. Nevertheless, it is daunting for people who aren't normally in the rice field one day to be planting rice in another. It's a fish-out-of-water experience, really. And today, may I say, the rice grains were out of water as well.

We sowed seeds this morning. But before we even stepped onto the field, there were some decisions that we needed to make: 

What rice variety was Team Tagumpay going to plant?
This is the most important question, I think. There are more than 100,000 rice varieties to choose from... and we only had a small area to plant. Since the aim of the game is maximized profits, we had to base our choice of variety on its past performance (i.e., yield) during the rainy season, its capacity to withstand stresses and its ability to resist diseases. We also had to consider the variety's cooking and eating quality.

How were we going to transplant them? And in what type of nursery?
The method of transplanting will affect the way we sow our team's seeds. Apparently, if we were going to use the mechanical transplanter, we need to plant in trays specifically designed for the machine. If we were transplanting the manual (traditional) way, there are still choices. There were wet beds and dry beds which could be used to prepare seedlings for transplanting.

I honestly think that the decisions we made are the right answers. Team Tagumpay will find out soon. This is our choose-your-own-adventure story.

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