Oryza sativa Seeds | Upland Rice
LATIN NAME: Oryza sativa
COMMON NAME: Upland Rice
Plant Profile
Upland rice is the same species as paddy rice, grown without standing water. It is sown dry into aerated soil on hillsides and plateaus, usually on slopes too steep or too dry for terracing, and it depends on rainfall rather than on irrigation. The plants are shorter and stiffer than lowland types, with deeper roots and a waxy leaf surface that limits water loss.
The crop is grown across a belt from eastern India through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and southern China, and in Latin America and West Africa as well. Yields are lower and more variable than paddy yields, often one to two tonnes a hectare against five or six, and the crop is associated with shifting cultivation and with the poorest soils on the farm.
Science & Biotechnology
The difference between upland and lowland rice is partly anatomical. Lowland types form aerenchyma, air channels that carry oxygen from the leaf to the root so the plant can breathe in waterlogged mud. Upland types form less of it and instead invest in deeper roots and in osmotic adjustment, accumulating solutes to hold water in the tissue as the soil dries.
Breeding has tried to combine the two. The aim is a plant with the yield of a paddy type and the root system of an upland one, and lines released in Asia and Brazil now yield three to four tonnes with 400 to 500 millimetres of rain. The limits are weed competition and blast disease rather than water, since a dry-sown crop has no water layer to suppress weeds.
Uses & Benefits
The grain is milled and eaten as rice, usually as a household staple rather than as a market crop, and the straw is fed to cattle and used for thatch and for bedding. In parts of Laos the grain is also used for lao hai, a rice beer brewed at home.
The crop matters most as a risk-spreading food. Where a family has one paddy field and one upland plot, the upland plot is what carries them through a year when the paddy fails, and agronomists count it as a food-security crop rather than as a commercial one.
Growing from Seed
Sow dry seed into moist soil at the start of the rains, in rows thirty centimetres apart, and cover it lightly. The critical period is the first month, when the seedling has to outgrow the weeds; a pre-emergence herbicide or two hand weedings decide the yield.
Upland rice needs a pH near neutral and responds to nitrogen, but too much nitrogen makes the plants leafy and prone to blast. Rotate with a legume where possible, keep the residue on the surface, and choose a variety bred for the local day length, since photoperiod sensitivity decides whether the crop heads before the rains end.
Our Take
A food-security crop rather than a garden novelty, and the hardest rice to grow well. Worth trying only where the rains are reliable.
Related Reading
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