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Does anyone have a source of rice seed?

1K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  inc 
#1 ·
Does anyone have a source of rice seed? I have tried sprouting the rice from the bags of brown rice, but it didn't work. Also, the VERY few places on the net who said they had rice, never responded to my question.

I would like to try it out in the marshy area near my creek.
 
#8 ·
As an historical note, did you know that Thomas Jefferson helped to re-establish rice growing in the United States by smuggling rice seed out of Italy while he was our ambassador to France? Rice had been grown in the United States but was wiped out by the British during the Revolution. Rice growing was a carefully guarded secret and the italians had a monopoly on its growth in Europe. Mr Jefferson made a trip to Italy and managed to acquire some seed ;) ;) and smuggled it out of Italy and sent to the United States. Heres an article that tells the story. http://www.amberwaves.org/web_articles/tj_rice.html
 
#9 ·
"I have tried sprouting the rice from the bags of brown rice, but it didn't work."
brown rice is processed in a way that prevents any sprouting. i was able to sprout it, once.

theres a guy i used to know- have let him drop out , dont know if i can convince him to talk to me again...but he had a collection of rice from heritage and semi modern, to the purple types nd such. i guess i could see if he is stil around.
from what i learned rice is a very demanding crop and i feel most unlikely to grown i n a northir climate. the seed really needs heat, and in the orient where land is so precious, the rice is sprouted as seedlings nd then transplanted to its final paddy. very labor intensive.
there is a dry land type but the yield is poor. and finally, the brown husk is hard-wired to the seed and really hard to get off- the oriental mill uses a millstone set on its SIDE to do this. ad thats just to make brown rice. white rice is tumbled with (something?) to grind the brown skin off and make it cook out better
 
#10 ·
inc, do you think you can find that info? Any heritage varieties should be shared and grown to save for future generations. I've hunted all over and have only ever found the one supplier for rice seed.

Thanks,
 
#11 ·
sigh- inc would have it but inc is broke. really broke.
tell you what- try ....seed savers. some of it may have made it in there. the membership was 15 dollars a year. inc hasnt made the 15 dollars yet.
the problems with the purple and the heritage seed is that the stuff was so darn awful to raise. normal rice takes a wet and dry land stage, and has to be flooded at accurate depths during certain stages of its life. its transplanted BY HAND at the four leaf stage.
anything that made it to seed savers has had enough of an increase to be actually something that you could gather grains off of. the samples i recievedd were like 20 seeds- rare but if you have to baby it and it maybe comes in before frost even when starting indoors early, what good is it?
i would have liked to try the dry land rice once but i hear that it is significatnly worse in production. rice , where it grows well(the tropics) is a great producer.
 
#12 ·
Thanks, inc, I'll try to track them down.

In the meantime, I found this source:

http://www.kushistore.com/acatalog/Organic_Rice.html


I found where someone had contacted this organic store. They carry unhulled rice. They normally hull it just before sending it so it is 'freshly hulled'. The person who wanted it said that he asked them to mail it unhulled and that is what they did. It is not a heritage rice, but you can buy a good bit to try at a reasonable price. I haven't tried to order any yet, so if someone does, would they let us all know how it goes?
 
#13 ·
this si the way to go- unless you find dry land rice, maybe that will be easier for home seed saving?
the problem is the long season, if you flood it correctly. remembre the seed needs warmth adn to be transplanted.
the guy grew the heritage types in kiddie swimming pools, so there wasnt the volume you want. at least with an american grown variety, you have a chance of getting it going.
btw- i have germinated an occasional seed out of commercial rice. the seedling is like a stringy orchard grass seedling. i wonder if they can be partially germinated, then the germinating seeds stirred up in a bucket of water and 'poured' off into another bucket? ungerminated seeds should sink and the germinatd should spin around when stirred.
then ground might be 'watered' with these sprouting seeds? then run that ground muddy or sprinklers on it. the water cannot be deep to germinate.
the proablem is that they need warmth to grow. you can tell i havent grown out rice before...
 
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