Yellow

Eight days after transplanting, we decided to go to the field to see what’s going on.

We were surprised to see that most of our plants have turned yellow. Even our fellow survivors were worried. After exchange of e-mails, we later found out that our plants are experiencing transplanting shock.  Seedlings are recovering from being pulled out of the soil in the nursery. They will be fine in a few weeks and only the weak seedlings will die.  Okay this seems to be problem solved, so need to worry.

Wait...

Some plants are missing.  I didn’t quite hear that. Could you say it again please?

SOME PLANTS ARE MISSING.

We thought that they might be submerged on the water. We drained the field a little bit and still our plants are nowhere to be seen. We tried to convince ourselves that the missing hills were caused by the mishaps of the mechanical transplanter. Totally draining the field revealed the culprit.

Snails, these tiny crawling creatures are the primary suspects for the loss of our plants.  They almost chomped on every rice leaf near the corners of our field. Due to their number and let’s not forget their enormous appetite for seedlings, some portions of our field have gone bald. 

The field was really in a bad shape. We better do something before it’s too late.