What Can I Do If Labor Is Short?

• Crop establishment

• • Direct-seed rice to reduce labor requirements for crop establishment.

• Two-wheel tractors

• • Use 2-wheel tractors as support for transport, preparing land, and pumping water.

• Harvesting

• • Use reapers to cut the rice (e.g., Kubota reapers) and mechanical threshers (e.g., axial-flow threshers) to remove the grain from the rice panicle.

• Weed control

• • Level fields and keep a layer of water over the rice to eliminate weeds. Cultivate or apply selective agro-chemicals to reduce problems with perennial weeds.

Note: For more details on these practices, see Fact Sheets in the Rice Knowledge Bank.