Korean people eat rice as a major food. So, growing rice is an important part of our dietary lives. Weeds have been always become a big problem in growing rice from the past and farmers use the agricultural pesticides as the easiest way to kill the weeds and this has been considered environmentally-unfriendly way to get rid of the weeds.
Using freshwater snails is one of the eco-friendly ways to grow rice. These snails, which look like small conches, were usually used in medicines or for cooking. But after finding out that these snails eat up the weeds selectively, they have been used as a natural pesticide for rice farming. This method was accidentally discovered by a Korean farmer who had failed in breeding freshwater snails. He threw the snails, which remained after parceling out, into the rice pads. Surprisingly, it was discovered that the snails only ate the weeds out of the rice and helped the rice grow healthier.
The method is very simple. If you release the snails in the rice paddies, they will go around and eat all of the weeds. Freshwater snails are well known as big eaters and they especially like to eat weeds. The rice plants grown by the freshwater snail methods have a strong life force as well as are strongly resistant to damage caused by diseases. There is a small rice field in Yangjae-Ecological Park that I reported here earlier in May. It used to do the snail farming every year only except for this year for some reason. Even if there is no snail this year, I would like to share the picture of the rice field this year (without snails). I remember that I saw snails on the leaves of the weeds in the past, which I am sorry not to share the picture of the snails in the Yangjae Ecological Park. The first and second pix are ones from other sources.
However, there are a few drawbacks for this method. Firstly, it can't solve the problem with harmful insects, which may be settled by another method using ducks. Another problem is that the freshwater snails that have enough ability to eat weeds may be alien species to certain area. Actually, Korean native snails may not be used for this rice growing method because snails indigenous to Korea are a bit small and don't have enough ability to eat the weeds that should be removed.
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9 Comments
Interesting strategy Soram. Thanks so much for sharing!!! =D Keep it up.
Posted 20-08-2015 13:17
this is same that applies in Nepal too.. we need to carry out ... good article indeed
Posted 20-08-2015 11:45
great method of pest control in rice
Posted 20-08-2015 08:50
That's really interesting. Using fresh water snails for the Rice farming is a good method. Thank you Soram for the vivid report.
Posted 20-08-2015 08:24
Successful weed control is essential for economical rice production but use of harmful pesticides should be stopped to control weed. From that point of view , use of fresh water snails as weed control measure sounds sustainable inspite of the fact that they may be alien species to certain area. Thanks for an informative and interesting report , Soram.
Posted 20-08-2015 03:36
Utilisation of pesticides and other chemical means to get rid of weeds in farms and cultivation lands cannot only cause chronic respiratory ailments but also causes tremendous harm to the land and soil quality as well as water resources of the region. Using biological weed control is an excellent measure and is also a commonly-followed practice in green farming. Thanks for the report, Soram:)
Posted 20-08-2015 01:30
Using Fresh Water snails to protect & grow rice is very well explained by you Soram.
Thanks for the vivid report.
Use of pesticides must be restricted & ultimately stopped.
Posted 19-08-2015 19:16
Rice is staple food in many country .In Nepal we invest lots of money to control rice pest. Of course Snail is one of the finest rice pest enemy. We can conserve ecology as well as economy through use of this natural enemy. Thank you very much for sharing this article.
Posted 19-08-2015 18:19
This method of using snails that eat away the weeds seems to be very interesting.This way,the use of harmful pesticides can be avoided.As mentioned in the report,rice varieties grown this way show greater resistance to diseases as well.So this method works well except for a few disadvantages.Thank you for such an interesting report.
Posted 19-08-2015 17:02