Hemanta, the late autumn season, is the season of harvest, and farmers are busy with their work. The fields of Bengal are filled with the fragrance of golden paddy as farmers throw themselves into bringing in the crop they have sweated for. At the same time, the necessary work for winter crops must begin now.

So here is what farmers should do to preserve Aman rice seed in the month of Kartik.

Remember that a good harvest needs good seed. In the Aman season it is best to keep and use your own seed. Paddy from a plot where the grain has ripened well, where there has been no disease or pest attack and which is free of weeds should be kept as seed.

Off-type plants should be removed even before harvesting. Remember that a plant is off-type if it differs in size, shape or colour, in flowering time or panicle type, in grain size, shape, colour or awn, or in ripening earlier or later than the rest. All diseased plants should also be removed.

Aman paddy ripens in Kartik, so it should be harvested on a sunny day. If you want to keep seed for the next season, first select a healthy, high-yielding crop. Then cut, thresh and winnow it and dry it well in the sun.

The dried, warm paddy should be winnowed and cleaned again, then cooled in the shade. The clean, cool paddy should be stored in an airtight container. Seed containers should not be placed on the soil or floor but on a raised wooden platform.

To keep pests away, dry neem, nishinda and lantana leaves, grind them to a powder and mix it with the paddy. This keeps the stored seed paddy in good condition, and good seed paddy will give a good yield when it is sown later.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.