We harvested our first rice ever last tuesday here in vermont. We got seed from the usda seed bank to grow out and selectively breed for the northeast climate. The variety we started with was hayayuki which is grown in the far northern part of japan which has a similar growing season as us. We only got 10 grams to start with and of that we ended up with
enough seed to grow in a paddy that was somewhere close to 12'x14'. It's still hanging up to dry so we don't know how much we ended up with but it looks like a decent haul.
We grew azolla as a
water ground cover to suppress weeds and supply nitrogen. We are also going to try to use it as animal
feed and garden nitrogen booster. We also grew water cress on the edges and we have been harvesting it for market every week. Next year we are going to try to make a few different plants and develop a
polyculture that works here so we aren't just growing fields of rice and rice only.
We think that others in new england
should try to grow it in their backyards and as a agricultural crop.
We have a kickstarter
project going now that hopefully will help us build our paddies this fall if your interested in supporting it you can check it out at
http://kck.st/oCUkod 
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