Forget Cow fats: It's the rice stupid

Which is worse? Rice paddies that produce methane or cows that fart?

we used to be told Cows produced 4 percent of global warming (but now estimates say three times that much. Make up your mind).

traditional rice paddy cultivation produces methane. 

UKIndependent  2.5 percent of global warming is caused by growing rice because of rotting weeds etc. in the paddies produce methane.

or maybe not: like all those global warming articles, the percentages vary greatly from article to article because they are estimates based on limited data.

so the experts devised a newer "dry" methods (using intermittant flooding) cut methane production. but now they found it produces Nitrous oxide, which is an even more potent green house gas.

from Xinhuanet:

The investigators measured greenhouse gas emissions from rice farms across southern India and found that nitrous oxide emissions from rice can contribute up to 99 percent of the total climate impact of rice cultivation at a variety of intermittently flooded farms. These emissions contributed substantially to global warming pollution, far more than the estimate of 10 percent previously suggested by multiple global rice research organizations, according to the study.

Italics mine.

so is rice contributing 2.5 percent, 10 percent or more? Who knows.

UKMail has an easier article that explains it all.

Methane and nitrous oxide emissions were measured at rice farms in India Experts examined two methods of water and organic matter management in use Intermittent flooding lead to up to 45 times more nitrous oxide being emitted The findings raise the prospect that rice farming worldwide is responsible for up to twice the level of climate change as had been thought

the dry method planted seeds instead of transplanting seedlings into the flooded paddies. Fine. Less global warming? or maybe not.

But what they are ignoring is seeds take more time to sprout. That is why we only plant two crops a year: Summer crop using seedlings, and the winter crop by planting seeds.

But if you plant seedlings and use lots of fertilizer, you can get three crops a year, as they do in  places like VietNam.

the way you prepare rice fields is you flood them and then plow and plow the weeds under (using a water buffalo or nowadays, a "handplow", sort of a large roto tiller like machine). You plant the rice seedlings by hand. (although they do have rice planting machines nowadays, we don't use them here yet).



 the flooding kills and keeps down weeds (which can't sprout: which is why you need to plant seedling into the flooded fields).

here, we use seedlings for the main crop and seeds for the less important "winter" crop, which needs irrigation.

And the dry method means you have to use more artificial fertilizer and herbicides to control weeds.

however, we are now using the alternating wet/dry method on some of our fields in order to keep down irrigation costs.



 we grow organic rice but usually use a mechanical thresher and have started cutting the rice with machinery on some of our fields.LINK



we still have a waterbuffalo for one wet field, but there are fewer now than when we moved here: They are now encouraging waterbuffalo for milk and dairy products.

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