RICEsilient Replanting...

Mechanical transplanting is a great way to save time when getting your seedlings on the field, but the technology is not perfect. Sometimes the machine misses out on one hill or another and you end up with nice little holes between your rows of rice plants.

The other teams had already taken care of this problem by manually replanting seedlings onto the left-out hills. Following the peer pressure, the members of team RICEsilient met this morning for some early morning fieldwork.
Wading through the mud between our rows, we filled up the spots and also got a chance to have a closer look at our plants. We discovered first weeds, smaller and bigger snails, and these bubblegum beauties:

What is pink and has no business in our field? ...snail eggs!

If there is anything we may thank the golden apple snail for, it is that its eggs come in this easily detectable colour. Just imagine these things were green or brown - hallelujah!
After two hours of bending, spotting and planting our field was back to lovely straight lines again. Bliss for an OCD like me.

Ahhh...

Quite a relaxing way to start the day, I've got to admit. Not to mention the free mud pack foot spa treatment that came with it :)