Prompted by a recent article by Jiang and Liu in Antiquity (80, 2006), Dorian Fuller and his co-authors return to the question of rice cultivation and consider some of the difficulties involved in identifying the transition from wild to domesticated rice. Using data from Eastern China, they propose that, at least for the Lower Yangtze region, the advent of rice domestication around 4000 BC was ...

Simplified cultivation technologies for rice have become increasingly attractive in recent years in China because of their social, economical and environmental benefits. To date, several simplified cultivation technologies, such as conventional tillage and seedling throwing (CTST), conventional tillage and direct seeding (CTDS), no-tillage and seedling throwing (NTST), no-tillage and direct see...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in an agricultural ecosystem are necessary for proper management of beneficial symbiosis. Here we explored how the patterns of the AMF community in rice roots were affected by rice cultivation systems (the system of rice intensification [SRI] and the conventional rice cultivation system [CS]), and by compost application during growth stages. Rice plants harves...

Hybrid rice cultivation has not increased significantly in Karnataka since the introduction of hybrids in the state in the mid-1990s. This study focuses on the profitability aspects of hybrid rice cultivation based on farmers’ experiences during the 2000-01 crop year. Hybrid rice was found to be higher yielding but less profitable than existing high-yielding varieties. The paper provides reason...

India is the largest producer of rice (Oryza sativa L.) next to China in the world. Rice cultivation is a huge water demanding enterprise. In recent years, water table has depleted at a very rapid rate throughout the globe, thus, posing alarming threats and limiting the scope for cultivation of high water consuming crops especially rice. Challenges in maintaining the sustainability of rice farm...

Cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As) accumulation in rice grains is a great threat to its productivity, grain quality, and thus human health. Pot and field studies were carried out to unravel the effect of different water management practices (aerobic, aerobic-flooded, and flooded) on Cd and As accumulation in rice grains of two different varieties. In pot experiment, Cd or As was also added into the ...

Despite advances in the capacity to predict the evolution of the El Niño–southern oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon and advances in understanding the influence of ENSO on rainfall in tropical regions such as Sri Lanka, there has been limited use of climate predictions for agricultural decision-making. Climatic fluctuations have a profound influence on the cultivation of crops such as rice, which is...

In order to integrate web with crop growth simulation and decision-making support system, the field experiment of different basal levels was carried out in experiment area of Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 2005 adopting 4 cultivars such as “Wuyungeng 7”, “Yangdao 6”, “Yueyou 948” and “Nangeng 41”, which mainly were used in collecting cultivar parameters and updating database of the...