Hello Hive.
Hand weeding is very important in rice field if you want to keep away rodents that will use those weeds as a hideout to destroy your plants.
When the rice field is bushy, it not only affect rice but create an avenue for destructive rodent.
In as much we prefer rice field to be free and like in this pictures.
No rodent can build a hideout in fields like this.
Yesterday we moved into another of rice tedious work of hand weeding.
You can see that even after applying chemicals to the rice field in the month of August, we still need to carry out some form of hand weeding at this time because of some important reasons.
Chemical weeding is usually done when rice plants are still very tender, after they have been transplanted for like a month or two one can use the chemical weeding method since every adverse effect and backward growth from the sprayed chemical is usually reversed and the rice can continue growing from there.
We carefully select, removed with and take them outside the rice field.
On getting to the month of September, you are advised not to spray chemicals on the rice again. Since at this time the hulls are emerging for some while in other plants the hulls are preparing to emerge. Chemical application at this time will destroy the rice plants completely.
During hulls production stage, there should be no chemical fertilization done and if you discover some weeds in the farm that will affect the growth of the rice. Hand weeding is preferable.
Hand weeding is done to remove every of the remnant grasses that refused to die after application of chemicals.
Sometimes the chemicals are of poor quality and concentration and hence they do not totally clear weed from the weeds.
At other times we are careful to add only the required amount of needed chemical in order for it not to affect the rice.
