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As the rice was getting larger I was waiting with anticipation for when the heads of rice would appear. In this continuation of my previous blog post, I will show you the ancient bucket rice heading, how it then ripened, and finish with harvesting rice with the students.

16th August – 25th August: Rice Begins to Head and Flower.

August 16th (57th day after planting). When checking the rice as usual I noticed that some of the stems were rounded and swollen. This growth stage is known as booting. Rice panicles (otherwise known as the rice heads – i.e. where the grain is attached to) start developing inside the bottom of the main stem (culm) and only when ready to flower do they appear out of the top.

August 21st (62nd day). A week after noticing the enlarged stems, the Black Rice started to head. The Red Rice was also not far behind, with a panicle being just visible in the sheath of the stem. The awns of the Red Rice grains (the spike on the end of each grain) were green and soft while the panicle was still in the stem, reminding me of the hairs you can find on corn cobs. The next day (63rd day), this panicle had burst out of the stem and the green awns had turned a wonderful red colour.

Rice plants flower as soon as the panicles emerge and this flowering period only lasts for a few hours in the morning. This is one of the mechanisms that helps cause rice to be self-pollinated under most circumstances.

On the 66th day, the rice that I had planted as dryland rice also started to head. By this point the Green Rice still hadn’t started heading but I got the impression it’s stems had started to swell up.

August 28th – September 5th: The Green Rice Starts Heading.

August 28th (69th Day). The young Red Rice and Black Rice panicles continued to extend out of the stem and were sticking up proudly. This is especially noticeable in the Red Rice, not only due to the colour but also because the panicles extended up further than the leaves which the Black Rice didn’t do.

September 3rd (75th Day). The Green Rice was finally about to start heading! Just like the Red Rice I could make out a panicle just before it emerged from the stem. In contrast to this exciting news, on checking the dryland rice, it appeared as though it was mistaken for a weed and had been cut with a strimmer by the groundskeeper.

September 5th (77th Day). While the Red Rice and Black Rice grain began to fill and the panicles started bowing over from the weight, the Green Rice finally began heading two weeks later than the other varieties.

Rice varieties naturally have different lengths of maturation which can mean time from planting until harvest can vary between 100 and 160 days. Usually the varieties that take longer to mature produce a larger yield. It appeared to me that the Green Rice panicles had more grains per head of rice so this could explain why it was later than the other varieties.

September 12th – September 13th: Black and Red Rice Grains.

September 12th (84th Day). As the rice plants continue to mature, some of the leaves yellow and die off. I thought this might be a sign that the day to harvest might be approaching. To confirm this I took a couple of the ripest looking grains and removed their hulls to have a look.

During the ripening process of a rice grain, after fertilisation, starch is sent to the grain by the plant. At the start this appears in the grain as a milky-white liquid but after about two weeks this liquid hardens into a chalky material. This chalk then gradually hardens until the rice is ready to harvest. The inside of the Red and Black Rice grains at this stage was no longer a liquid but was still very much on the soft, chalky side.

Usually rice is ready to be harvested between 40 and 45 days after heading. However, it was difficult to locate any advice online about whether this differed for ancient rice varieties. Considering the softness of the grains and that only 22 days had passed since the start of heading, I thought it was a safe bet that it would still be a little while until harvesting could begin.

September 19th. Variation in Black Rice grains, Insects and Green Rice grain progress.

September 19th (91st Day). Just as I was thinking how beautiful the Red Rice was getting as the grains were ripening and how tasty the final rice will be, some shield bugs came to eat the rice. Almost as though they were thinking the same thing I was.

Luckily, as there was only a few insects, the damage wasn’t really noticeable.

At this point there was something interesting I had noticed about the Black Rice panicles. Unlike the other two varieties, which had panicles of fairly uniform colour and shape, the Black Rice had panicles that varied considerably on both counts.

In particular, there were some panicles with grains that were brown, and then others with grains that were black-green. At first I assumed the difference was due to different levels of ripening, and that the brown panicles were riper. However, as time passed, the colour of the blackish-green panicles didn’t change to brown at all.

Looking closely at the grains from these two panicles, not only was the hull different, but also the grain inside was different, too. The brown panicles had brown grains with a colour somewhat similar to that of a Red Rice grain. The black-green panicles on the other hand had very dark purplish black grains.

I don’t have enough information on this rice to provide a reason for this that I’m confidant about. I suspect it is either due to environmental differences while the panicle was developing or simply a kind of natural genetic instability in the rice.

Generally, because rice is self-fertilising, it does not readily outcross and so is very uniform between individuals and over generations. Rice is of course also bred and selected to have uniformity within individuals to make management and harvesting easier. This Black Rice was rather diverse from the start. Heading occurred over a long time with panicles not all appearing at once. As these are not great traits for a cultivated crop, I suspect this might make the Black Rice the oldest of the three varieties and closest to the wild state of rice.

At this time the Green Rice was also coming along beautifully. Taking a look at the grains the green colour is very prominent. This makes sense considering the name, but the grains were still very soft so still had a while to go before being ripe.

September 25th – September 27th. Green Rice and Insect Damage.

September 25th (97th Day). A different kind of shield insect was targeting the green rice. It was long and thin and is suspected to have destroyed a few grains of rice. As judge, jury and executioner I determined the defendant guilty and sentenced them to death by spider.

Taking a look at the Green Rice grains again, it was interesting to see that the green colour had almost entirely gone. The grain was also a lot more solid.

September 27th – October 3rd. Harvesting the Red Rice.

September 27th (99th Day). Since one week previous, 90% of the the Red Rice panicles were heavily bending over and the colour of the grains was no longer changing. I thus decided it was time to harvest! This would put the harvest day at 43 days after heading, which is actually within the range suggested for normal rice cultivation!

I asked the teachers at the school to make an announcement during school lunch inviting any students who would like to try harvesting the rice. 20 or so stayed the whole time and others came and went. It filled me with pride watching how the students got really stuck in with intense concentration and interest!

There wasn’t much harvesting to go around considering the limited number of rice plants but I managed to give everyone a turn by getting them to cut one stem at a time with scissors. Then, once a bucket’s rice stems had all been cut I got the students to try and tie the bundle up with stem and leaf material.

I had heard that sparrows might come and eat rice while it is being dried, so to avoid that and any rain I got permission to use an empty classroom and built a simple contraption to hang the bundles on.

The next day the appearance of the bundles had changed rather a lot, and the grains which were sterile and which hadn’t formed rice properly were pink and easy to spot.

October 18th: Black Rice and Green Rice Harvest.

October 18th (120th Day). Despite the panicles not bending over as much as I expected, the actual Green Rice grain green colour was gone and they were much harder, so I decided to go ahead with the harvest. As for the Black Rice, I’m sure most of the panicles were ripe a few weeks prior, but to ensure as many as possible were fully ripe I put off harvesting them until now.

I again let the students know via lunchtime broadcast and again got a nice spread of different ages and classes. This time, because there were more buckets being harvested, each student got to cut a few more stems!

Black Rice headed on the 57th day after planting and then 63 days after that was harvested.

Green Rice headed on the 75th day after planting and then 45 days after that was harvested.

I am so grateful that after putting in a lot of work that I was able to harvest the rice with the students. It was really rewarding, being a completely new experience for all of us! Of course, I wanted to actually taste the rice I had grown too! Next time I’ll show you how I got the students to help me hull the rice so it could be cooked. Don’t miss it!