Levelling technology allows farmers to grow rice in Switzerland as a way to restore unproductive swamp land
The hot August sun beats down on acres of rice plants as frogs leap along the dikes separating different paddies. A snake slithers among the reeds and hundreds of dragonflies among the green stalks are too preoccupied to pose for a picture. It will be another few months before the grains turn golden and ready […] Read moreTag Archives rice
Researchers push the prairie crop comfort zone
Rice in Manitoba was a disaster. In 2012, in the Banana Belt region of the province near Melita, the staff at the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO) seeded a plot of dry rice to see if they could bring it to harvest. The project fit with their role in Manitoba’s agricultural sphere: risk the wreck […] Read more
Can upland rice make it on the Prairies?
Rice needs about 20 inches of water, about the same as irrigated sugar beet and potato crops require in southern Alta.
Scientists are trying to prove that raising rice on the windswept prairies of southern Alberta is not as unlikely as it might first appear. There is a common misconception that rice can only be grown in flooded fields or paddies in Asia, said Michele Konschuh, an irrigated crop scientist at the University of Lethbridge. However, […] Read more
First the purple tomato, now purple rice
In September, the United States Department of Agriculture said it is safe to grow and eat a new variety of tomato, which is genetically modified and purple in colour. Now, another purple food is being grown in North America — purple rice. USDA scientists in Arkansas have developed and commercialized a purple rice, with an […] Read more
Tight rice supplies could boost wheat demand
Wheat markets could be getting a demand bump from an unlikely source in 2022-23, says an analyst. Tight global rice supplies could result in changing trade patterns in the Indian Subcontinent. “There could be some wheat that has to be used as a substitute for rice,” said MarketsFarm analyst Bruce Burnett. On Sept. 9, India […] Read more
Southern Alta. researcher experiments with rice
An agricultural company asks University of Lethbridge to find out if it’s possible to successfully grow rice on the Prairies
University of Lethbridge researcher Michele Konschuh said she was initially skeptical about the idea of growing rice in southern Alberta but is warming to the idea that it could be possible in the future. “One question we had was would they even survive,” said Konschuh, a research associate in U of L’s department of biological […] Read more
