Time-lapse photography of the 136th & 137th LTCCE at IRRI

Since 1963, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org ) has grown first two, then, from 1968, three crops of rice per year on that one hectare, in what is known as the Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE). This video shows time-lapse photography of the 136th and 137th crops grown from early May through November 2009. As shown in the video, the time between harvesting one crop and planting another is minimal (2 to 3 weeks), and crop residue is removed after harvest, rather than incorporated into the soil.

Dr. Roland Buresh, who took over as the LTCCEs lead researcher in 2000, explains that unique properties of submerged soils make rice different from any other crop. Because of prolonged flooding, he says, farmers are able to conserve soil organic matter and also receive free input of N from biological sources. This biological N fixation amounts to around 25 kilograms per hectare per crop, enough to help ensure a stable yield of about 3 tons per hectare per crop in the absence of applied fertilizer N. And, this has been sustained for the 46 years of the LTCCE.

In another video on YouTube, Dr. Buresh explains the experiment in more detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkwN_48ycTU

Also see the ceremonial harvesting of the 138th crop to open IRRI's Alumni Homecoming Week at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZREz3SXd1TY

Another time-lapse video can be viewed at http://youtu.be/_7ygEfvBBY4

Category:

Education

Tags:

• LTCCE
• Long-Term
• Continuous
• Cropping
• Experiment
• IRRI
• International
• Rice
• Research
• Institute
• Philippines
• time-lapse
• photography