Rice

Rice (Oryzastavia)

Growing rice grain

It is estimated that 90% of the world population has tasted rice. It is believed to have been cultivated for more than 5000 years. Many People have the romantic image of glorious rice terraces carved into the side of Mountains and hillside but the reality is that most rice is not grown on terraces. It is grown in flat rice fields. As it is at Motag Living Museum.
In modern times rice is planted and harvested three times a year.
I the 1930’s it would be planted once and harvested once a year.
The rice would initially be sewn in a dry sandy bed, this is to make transplanting easier and the ensure the roots are not damaged during transplanting.  It is then left for one month until it is about 5 inches high.  At this stage it is called Sabod.  It is bundled and taken to the permanent flooded irrigated paddy fields the Tanom, for transplanting.

Planting Sabod

Sabod growing

The rice is then replanted by hand and left to grow for about 10 weeks until harvest time.

 

 

 

 

It is then cut with a Pangayog, a small hand held tool that is used to cut just the heads off the stalks, the modern method is to use a scythe and the whole stalk along with the heads goes into a mechanical thresher.

In this day and age the rice is already separated from the stalk, so is laid out to dry and you might have already seen some on the road ways on your travels in the Philippines.

Rice threshing

In the 1930’s rice would be harvested and threshed by foot on a portable rice thresher.  This would be positioned according to the direction of the wind to allow the stalk to blow away from the heavier rice heads. It is then dried on Pongtod, higher ground on amakan mats. Rice is then stored in the Pitikan, the Granary.

In our first season at the Motag Living Museum we will be growing white rice and sticky rice. Next season we will be growing rare breeds of rice.
We Look forward to being one of the first growers of rare breed rice in the Malay area.