Talk:Paddy field

korea and japan

It was proposed that the article concentrates too much on these two areas. I think there is merit in the suggestion that the current examples of Korea and Japan could have their own articles. Yet the article is not particularly large and unwieldy -- the usual reason for establishing related articles. I can do general technical issues as well as Japan and Korea, but I have to defer to fellow editors for other examples of paddy fields. Nevertheless, it would great to expand the article to make it more inclusive of other parts of the world that using the same farming techniques. Any thoughts? Mumun 無文 00:58, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Have placed notes on talk pages of some country and region wikiprojects. I requested that the article be expanded in the interest of getting a wider overview of paddy fields.Mumun 無文 15:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Very useful. Would be good to seek out some material on paddy fields as ecosystems, also on the practice of rice cultivation. There could be links to different kinds of rice growing. Are rice fields in Italy and Spain considered to be paddy fields? Itsmejudith 19:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, the ones in the Italian Piedmont and Camargue region of France seem to be rice paddies. The Korean section in particular contains info on the practice of paddy field farming, and so it would be good to add new information in overview form from other countries. Mumun 無文 20:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The Japan section is not too long necessarily, but is rather off-topic. Only the first sentence has anything to do with rice farming per se; the rest is mostly irrelevant linguistic trivia. Edz11 (talk) 00:35, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

10,000 BC

There was a sentence in the text claiming that paddy-field agriculture dates back to 10,000 BC. This is not, in fact, the case. The sentence had a source from the Vietnamese government. However, one has to question this assertion as per WP:SOURCE as there are no archaeologists who claim to have found any evidence that such activities took place anywhere on the planet at 10,000 BC. I removed this claim. Mumun 無文 18:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I put it in because I found it in the source but on reflection you did quite right to remove it because such an extraordinary claim would have to be much better sourced than that. Thanks. Itsmejudith 19:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries, Itsmejudith. It is good to see the article expanded ^^. I have some papers by Professors Glover and Highham, as well as a couple by Prof. Gary Crawford. I'll look through these to see what they say about the paddy fields in Vietnam. I have no doubt, however, that human-rice relationships and cultivation in general is indeed ancient in Vietnam. I'm sure we can expand Vietnam and give it its due. In the meantime, hopefully some fellow editor beats us to it!! Cheers, Mumun 無文 20:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Main body of article

while there is, indeed a lot more to be done regarding rice paddies in specific culture, I think the main body of the article could use some work as well. I'm a bit confused by it. For example, are rice paddies a specific type of technology or methodology for planting rice? If so, are there others? How are they different from rice paddy technology? There's so much to say about rice paddies per se that I think the emphasis on cultural aspects is rather unwarranted. In my honest opinion. Also, the shift from discussing rice paddies per se and then discussing cultural variants of rice paddy technology... seem rather abrupt. I would love to hear others' comments. Alternativity 13:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree that more general details on technology and methodology should be offered so that some of these questions can be cleared up. Mumun 無文 19:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Questions

As a non-specialistAlternativity 06:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC), I feel rather unqualified to answer some questions in my head, and I must admit I find research on agricultural technologies difficult as I have no Idea where to start and which sources are credible. Let me therefore raise a few questions:

Appearance

The article as it is now has two qualifications for a paddy field:

    1. A flooded parcel of land
    2. used for growing rice and other semiaquatic crops.

Are there no other qualifying characteristics?

Also, are paddies used only for rice? The article indicates that other crops can be, and are in fact, grown in Paddies. But then it focuses almost exclusively on rice. I believe this needs to be addressed. At the very least a sentence is needed that says most paddy technologies were evolved specifically for growing rice. Also I believe those other "semiaquatic crops" should be identified.

I am aware that rice paddies are used for other crops (and in the Philippines at least, fish and shrimp) when not being used for rice. If that is the context within which these "semiaquatic crops" are farmed, then the paddy fields are meant for rice BUT are alternatively used for other purposes after the rice season.

See what I mean by I'm no expert? I don't know where to begin editing.

History

When the Rice wiki says "Stone tool evidence from the Yunchanyan site in Hunan province suggests the possibility that Early Neolithic groups cultivated rice as early as circa 9000 B.C.," does that mean paddies?

When the Rice wiki says "This evidence leads most archaeologists to say that large-scale dry-land rice farming began between 5000 and 4500 BC in the area of Yangtze Delta" does that mean paddies?

And when it continues, saying "wet-rice cultivation began at approximately 2500 BC in the same area." does that mean paddies?

It seems to me that the article's outline should be

• TOP (description of paddy, why it is used for raising rice and "other semiaquatic crops" and which countries use paddy technology -- not all necessarily in one paragraph)

• Characteristics of Paddy Field Farming (covering tools and techniques)

• Variants of Paddy Field Farming including Terracing technology

• History of Paddy Field Farming (globally speaking)

• Cultures with unique approaches to Paddy Field Farming or cultural traits arising from it

which might mean moving some materiel from the country-specific sections and onto the main body.

This, of course, constitutes only an opinion on my part, and if others disagree, I'd be glad to see whatever happens in the discussion. Alternativity 06:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a great start. I am not sure I can answer all of your questions at the moment, but I will eventually. This can be used as an activity to rebuild the article so that it makes more sense.

You asked about defining characteristics of paddies. I will go back to the Barnes paper that's listed in the article and get some more, but for now:

• Flat land -- paddies should be flat, with the exception of the area of the paddy where water drains out.
• Not all terrain with paddies has the right soil, and so farmers frequently tamp in special soil. I think that this soil also serves to effectively seal the paddy-field so that water doesn't leak into the subsurface below the paddy.
• Canals and other pools need to be built and rebuilt so that the flow of water is continuous.
• I'll try to find other characteristics...I'm sure I'm missing something that's key ;-)

________

• I know that, in the Northern Hemisphere, paddies are drained in the winter and can be used to grow other crops, i.e. multiple cropping. I think barley is one crop that's grown in Korea and Japan. You mentioned that this also occurs in the Southern Hemisphere, so maybe this is not uncommon.

• 'Wet-field' is just another term for paddy that is used by archaeologists. There are two methods of growing rice using dry-fields and wet-fields (paddies). All the stuff from the rice article that mention really early dates, including Yunchanyan at 9000 BC etc, refers to rice grown in dry-fields rather than paddies. At 9000 BC, these dry-fields were probably hastily prepared plots next to the village, and tending and harvesting were likely hit-and-miss, etc. Archaeologists (palaeoethnobotanists) know that people were planting and interacting with rice and its wild ancestors at this time because of archaeobotanical evidence.

• I'm not sure about the passage that mentions Yangze delta, but I know for sure that archaeologists haven't recovered any wet-fields (paddies) with such early dates (i.e. 5000-4000 BC). The passage that says wet-field rice farming began in 2500 BC is a guess, but it makes sense because we know a lot more about the Chinese prehistoric societies and technology at 2500 BC. From 2500 BC people may have used paddies, but like I said, there is no direct evidence of paddies -- just archaeobotanical evidence of carbonized rice.

I agree with the outline for this article as proposed by Alternativity. In addition, there are many 'historical' points scattered throughout the text that could be nicely brought together in a history section.

It may take me several weeks to add material from Barnes (1990). Hope this makes sense -- I typed really fast! Mumun 無文 13:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: created history section from pieces of text scattered her and there in the article. I also clarified that, although the most ancient paddy comes from Korea, palaeoethnobotanists accept that wet-field cultivation originated in China and spread to Korea through as-of-yet unknown means.Mumun 無文 19:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

a new link regarding history paddy field appeared in China 7700 years ago http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/china_rice_dc

Additional Source

http://business.inquirer.net/money/features/view_article.php?article_id=81675

Hi. I'm a bit busy at the moment but this just showed up in Philippine papers - output from the International Rice Research Institute, apparently. (hehe. not even enough time to finish reading.) I'll get to work on this next week if nobody else does, but others may want to work on it right away. I thnk most of the statements here are universal, so they should go in the main body of the article rather than under Philippines. Alternativity 10:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

---

• http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Oldest-Rice-Cultivation-7-700-Years-Old-67019.shtml

the link on date of first paddy field - the article should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.167.104.182 (talk) 21:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

More information on definition + methods please

This article has lots of local histories but its lacks a description of what rice paddys are, why there are terraces in the pictures and how rice is grown in this method. For instance, the cycle may be: planting, flooding, draining and then havesting, though I don't know.

This article needs to explain more about how rice paddys are used and why the pictures look the way they do.

Isaac (talk) 04:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

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Japan and ta

The Japan section gives a lot of emphasis on the suffix -ta and its appearance in Japanese names. It gives the impression that ta is the common Japanese word for rice paddy, although suiden is more generally used.

At any rate, this is probably too much linguistic information for those who may be looking for something else. Kortoso (talk) 16:28, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

#### tonnes of agricultural products per annum

The second paragraph of the lead section includes the following sentence: "Paddy fields are a major source of atmospheric methane and have been estimated to contribute in the range of 50 to 100 million tonnes of the gas per annum while yielding an estimated #### tonnes of agricultural products per annum."

I don't think it is useful to have a bunch of hash symbols in the article. Is there anyway that we can find out how many tonnes of agricultural products are created per year? Failing that, can the sentence be chopped in half, to remove the reference to the products being created. Big Mac (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

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