Rice on the roof - How to use grey water for growing paddy

[BackyardDiscoveryCo]

Who would have thought? What a great idea! thx

[whiskerchild]

Can you grow rice in Southern California weather?

[xptos1]

@zenrainman thanks for uploading this video. I'd like to ask you how many kilos of rice you normally produce in that paddy per year?

[kmraghu61]

Great idea! what about the urine from diseased persons

[zenrainman]

@kmraghu61 you have to be careful..and it depends on the disease. Generally at the family level it is not a problem...but care and precaution always.

[GreenLearning]

@kmraghu61

If urin were to be bottled until it changed to ammonia, the pH with the ammonia would kill ANY bacteria, virus, pathagen ect...

[copefarms]

@kmraghu61 urine is sterile so is not a problem

[beelzebubsaves]

@kmraghu61 the system is for "grey water", sewage is "black water"

[kmraghu61]

Great idea!

[joohop]

brilliant

[zenrainman]

Not really, the reeds pretty soon fill up the tank and there is no space for the water to be open for the mosquitoes to go in...

[faiqrg]

Do mosquitoes breed in the tanks while the reeds clean water?

[leenus2b]

Excellent video, It will be very useful if u prepare a document on Required components / parts, which helps us to set this up in home.Pls mail me if u already have any

[sshhh12]

great job!

[pgm98387]

This system that you demonstated, shows a very effiencient use of waste water. I live in a cooler temporate climate with evergreen trees. Do you have any fruit trees? Do they get the biosand filtered urine? Is urine good for fruit trees?

[zenrainman]

Urine is also excellent for fruit trees since they have quite a nicely balanced N,P,K and micro nutrients. Apply in small doses and diluted 1:5 to begin with...

[pakgin87]

what a man for one man!

[StarryRendezvous]

awesome.

[haxor98]

Well done on that :)

Looks like a fantastic way to recycle water

[zenrainman]

Thanks kevin

[feralkevin]

Excellent video! Thanks. I can't wait until I can try to set something like this up for myself.

[2Shye]

grey water usually builds up a lot of bacteria and begins to smell if left standing for more than 48 hours.. after the water has been filtered with the reed barrels is the water clean enough for storage ? i use only grey water in my garden and my biggest problem is storage.

[zenrainman]

You are absolutely right,I never try to store it for more than 24 hours and I always avoid kitchen water completely. Using bath water and washing machine water with very less detergents helps. The reed bed system with the cattails helps enormously as does the fact that on the roof there is a lot of wind and sun which helps eliminate the bacteria and smell. I have grown 6 crops of rice so far eliminates the smell completely. The trick is immediate use,expose to sunlight and wind . :):)

[2Shye]

im looking to build a similar style system at my house to feed a fishpond which will then be used to support an aquaponics system.

at the moment I collect all water from the house (except toilet) including dishes (I dont eat meat or use much oils) and it then gets filtered through an old sock to remove the lumps and then its is injected directly into the soil using water spikes. for traditional soil cultivation.

so far i have not had any problems.

[Allahrama]

Are the reeds palced on some earth bed at bottom or simply floating in water?

Where can I get such weeds? I am in Mumbai and has a bungalow with some land.

[Allahrama]

Instead of the reeds any other water plant can clean the water? Can the water thus cleaned be used for watering other plants also or only grow paddy?

[RedWhiteandBetrayed]

This is a great idea

[zenrainman]

Yes unfortunately India does too. Phosphates in the detergent is a major problem but rice paddy seems to do a good job of absorbing it. Till the bio degradable detergents come we need to find solutions and this is one.

[dw90242]

Is your laundry detergent biodegradable? A lot of countries still use harmful detergents.

[Shebaqueenof]

Wow! Are there any other plants we can grow ?

[lirg123]

But i got to say, you do have a good way to reuse water and make a better place.

[lirg123]

Get subs, your accent is hard for me to hear. Not only that, could you use smaller words or easier words.

[Ninyae1]

My goodness gracious me, you cannot understand his accent? Listen here you madfellow, have you ever considered that he might not understand your accent? If Peter Sellers were still here, I would put him on your case and have him sort you out! :-)

Maybe its because I am Australian and we play against the subcontinent in cricket, but I find him perfectly easy to understand!

[BagOfOats]

Seriously, he doesn't have that big of an accent, and whoever said that the way you speak is the right way. Nintae1 has a point, maybe he won't understand you.

Maybe its because I am Canadian and they are halfway across the globe and no one here plays cricket, except maybe the one with the wooden hammer that you have to strike a ball past little arcs and to hit a stick, but I find him perfectly easy to understand!

[lirg123]

It's not that, it's just that i hear the background more than his smaller voice. SO that why i ask for subs. Now his voice is better.

[breezyage]

Why get on the guys case because He can't understand an accent? My goodness, he just asked for subs.

[kieranmullen2]

perhaps you could get a little solar panel to operate an electric pump for the water? it would work slowly but your are in no rush?

[deterpeter]

Congratulation! Very nice system.

[zenrainman]

Yes it does. My calculations here are that I get a kilogramme of rice for Rs 20/- (US 50 Cents).The point however is that I treat greywater too for which there is a cost and I use Ecosan too for which the city pays a cost. If you include all benefits it makes economic sense to do this too.

[SandraMort]

I haven't watched the video yet, things are a little crazy here right now, but I was wondering if you had compared the cost of the setup to the cost of purchasing the rice. Does it save any money to do this way, both short term and in the long run. Thank you!

[zenrainman]

On a square meter 1.2 kgs of rice is produced. The point here is not only the production of rice but the use of greywater and ecosan. Rice is grown because paddy is a plant that tolerates a wide range of water quality better than many and also because rice prices are globally rising very fast

[xraysatilite]

Yes thanks how much rice does a single plant produce this should be on the home page will we ver learn

[ahya48]

This is really great! Can you please tell me the amount of area you have planted and what kind of yield you have? Thanks!

[Jicarilla07]

Cattails and Arrow grass are what we have in the bogs along the river here in Arizona. Nice water conditioning system. And the guys is totaly right about the urine nothing better. Thank you

[PukkPukk]

Fantastic! I am sure that we have to be careful on the detergents we use.  This is a fantastic use of grey water. Thanks!

[desertblbuesman]

well done!

[uhhhgggg]

bravo!

[zenrainman]

The reeds are called phragmytese or cattails or bulrushes. They can also be vetiver or sugarcane too.

[fraktyl]

What kind of reeds are those in the blue tanks?

[fraktyl]

Wow! Very nice!