Flooded! Fields which may have grown daikon, crucifers or legumes through winter are cleared and flooded with nutrient-rich river water by an ingenious reticulation system of gravity-fed stone and concrete channels, gutters and slice-gates...
No oxen or water-buffalo here! Everyone seems to own or borrow a Kubota tractor or cultivator...
Seedlings await planting out.
Just planted.
Totally submerged, and with the weather warming, the rice grows at a phenomenal rate.
In this part of Japan it's more common to see a family rice paddy than a front lawn. It's certainly much better use of water. Even wealthy middle-class suburbs are often interspersed with family plots. There's a long tradition of rice-growing here and people like to keep it up as much for social and familial reasons as producing their own food. Most of these shots were taken around Aboshi near Lyn's school (Asahi Junior High) from beginning of the flooding several months ago.
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