# Planting Rice



## High Life (Jul 15, 2013)

Can anyone give me some advice about planting rice in middle GA?  

How late can we plant and still make a crop?  Also, with all this rain we're having trouble draining our ponds.  Does anyone have experience planting rice seed in standing water?  Has anyone had luck pre-germinating rice and planting it in a pond?

Thanks for your help.


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## buckdaddy1981 (Jul 15, 2013)

I planted some with last year along with jap millet. Soaked it in water for about a day i think. It came up and headed out but i wasn't real impressed. Seemed to take forever compared to the millet. Unless you're dead set on rice I'd save the money and have more ducks with the jap millet. Just my opinion.


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## High Life (Jul 15, 2013)

buckdaddy1981 said:


> I planted some with last year along with jap millet. Soaked it in water for about a day i think. It came up and headed out but i wasn't real impressed. Seemed to take forever compared to the millet. Unless you're dead set on rice I'd save the money and have more ducks with the jap millet. Just my opinion.



I hear you but my problem is draining the ponds.  You can't plant jap millet in standing water can you?  I figured rice is my only option because, supposedly, it can be pre-germinated and planted in a couple of inches of water.  

Thanks


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## jmock9 (Jul 15, 2013)

im still waiting on my pond to dry to plant.  i have been hoping for the middle of July but here it is.  go to seedland.com and click on wildlife seed - all varities and then wild rice.  it has directions for planting in standing water.


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## across the river (Jul 15, 2013)

High Life said:


> I hear you but my problem is draining the ponds.  You can't plant jap millet in standing water can you?  I figured rice is my only option because, supposedly, it can be pre-germinated and planted in a couple of inches of water.
> 
> Thanks



Rice isn't that easy, and you would probably be wasting you time this late in the year.  How big is the pond?  Do you fish in it?  Is it yours or someone else's?


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## buckdaddy1981 (Jul 16, 2013)

The jap millet won't grow in the water so i see where you're coming from. If you have any halfway clear spots on the bank you'll be good to go though. The ducks would land in the pond and walk up into mine last summer. Funny seeing ducks flush like quail!


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## RAYM (Jul 16, 2013)

We germinated ours for 24 hours drain it and let it sit for 48 hours and planted it at the house and let it grow for 3 weeks then went and planted it in standing water it came up slow and was a pain to plant but we did ours in August and it was up in November with rice on it


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## High Life (Jul 16, 2013)

across the river said:


> Rice isn't that easy, and you would probably be wasting you time this late in the year.  How big is the pond?  Do you fish in it?  Is it yours or someone else's?



The ponds are ours and not really fishable. They vary from a couple of acres to maybe 15. Basically shallow man-made beaver ponds. In the past some have held fish but not since the recent drought years.

So you think it's too late in the growing season to plant rice and make a crop?


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## High Life (Jul 16, 2013)

RAYM said:


> We germinated ours for 24 hours drain it and let it sit for 48 hours and planted it at the house and let it grow for 3 weeks then went and planted it in standing water it came up slow and was a pain to plant but we did ours in August and it was up in November with rice on it



Sounds good. The direcctions I've seen say to let it germinate for 24-48 hours. why did you do your's for 3 weeks? Also, why was it a pain to plant? Difficult to broadcast by hand from a boat? Thanks.


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## labradoodle (Jul 16, 2013)

too late just about. water level is critical from my little experience. want it to rise with the rice to defend weeds from taking over and over taking the rice


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## High Life (Jul 17, 2013)

labradoodle said:


> too late just about. water level is critical from my little experience. want it to rise with the rice to defend weeds from taking over and over taking the rice



10-4, thanks.


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## across the river (Jul 17, 2013)

High Life said:


> The ponds are ours and not really fishable. They vary from a couple of acres to maybe 15. Basically shallow man-made beaver ponds. In the past some have held fish but not since the recent drought years.
> 
> So you think it's too late in the growing season to plant rice and make a crop?



I have never seen anyone have a whole lot of success growing rice, other than the farmers who grow it commercially.   Obviously they are set up for it. Rice has a longer maturity time than something like millet, so you would run into some cool weather before it reaches maturity if you plant this late.  You can try it, but I wouldn't expect a lot.  About the only thing you could really do this year is plant around the edges as was mentioned earlier and hope  for the best.  
If you have no plans on fishing the ponds, however, you do have some pretty good options for the future.  If the ponds are indeed beaver ponds, you could install a Clemson Leveler and use that to control the water and plant it.  There is plenty of info on them on the web.  However, if they hold water year round and you aren't going to ever fish them, then your best bet is to plant a waterborne plant ducks eat.  Banana Water lilly, Sago Pond weed, coontail,  duck potato, smart weed, and even hydrilla will all grow in water to some extent and attract ducks.  You would just have to pick something or a combination that would work in the type of water, soil type, and depth of the ponds you have.  Most of these plants are considered invasive will take over a pond, so don't put them in the a pond that you want to fish or plan to stock in the future. However, 15 acres of banana water lilly (or the others) will hold plenty of ducks.  It won't be something you establish this year, but you surely have potential if you choose to pursue it.


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## RAYM (Jul 18, 2013)

High Life said:


> Sounds good. The direcctions I've seen say to let it germinate for 24-48 hours. why did you do your's for 3 weeks? Also, why was it a pain to plant? Difficult to broadcast by hand from a boat? Thanks.



We planted it and let it grow about six inches dug it up and replanted it strand by strand by hand it's really just a pain but that was the way we was told to do it


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## ThunderRoad (Jul 18, 2013)

RAYM said:


> We planted it and let it grow about six inches dug it up and replanted it strand by strand by hand it's really just a pain but that was the way we was told to do it



Raym how much rice did you sew and how did it work? I am assuming you did this in GA...PM me if you need to


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## High Life (Jul 23, 2013)

across the river said:


> I have never seen anyone have a whole lot of success growing rice, other than the farmers who grow it commercially.   Obviously they are set up for it. Rice has a longer maturity time than something like millet, so you would run into some cool weather before it reaches maturity if you plant this late.  You can try it, but I wouldn't expect a lot.  About the only thing you could really do this year is plant around the edges as was mentioned earlier and hope  for the best.
> If you have no plans on fishing the ponds, however, you do have some pretty good options for the future.  If the ponds are indeed beaver ponds, you could install a Clemson Leveler and use that to control the water and plant it.  There is plenty of info on them on the web.  However, if they hold water year round and you aren't going to ever fish them, then your best bet is to plant a waterborne plant ducks eat.  Banana Water lilly, Sago Pond weed, coontail,  duck potato, smart weed, and even hydrilla will all grow in water to some extent and attract ducks.  You would just have to pick something or a combination that would work in the type of water, soil type, and depth of the ponds you have.  Most of these plants are considered invasive will take over a pond, so don't put them in the a pond that you want to fish or plan to stock in the future. However, 15 acres of banana water lilly (or the others) will hold plenty of ducks.  It won't be something you establish this year, but you surely have potential if you choose to pursue it.



Lots of good info, thanks for the advice. The germination went well. Hopefully there's enough growing season left for it to mature. I guess that we'll see... Thanks again everyone.


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## RAYM (Jul 23, 2013)

ThunderRoad said:


> Raym how much rice did you sew and how did it work? I am assuming you did this in GA...PM me if you need to



Sorry thunder just now saw this. We did about 15 pounds of the rice like that and the rest we threw it on the ground and ran the tiller over it a few times and it actually grew as well. I went to the swamp 3 times a week and got water out if the creek with a bucket and waters it and that was no fun at all. We also fertilized it pretty good the first few weeks


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## RAYM (Jul 23, 2013)

I'm wanting to say that as long as you have it planted before September it's good. And when it gets humid man does that stuff start coming up fast


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