economy

Farms in Mangyongdae District, Pyongyang, have introduced a method of cultivating rice seedlings in greenhouses by which they can grow safe and healthy rice seedlings, unaffected by natural conditions.

True to the decisions of the Ninth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the district set a goal to put agricultural production on a higher scientific, IT and intensive basis and built greenhouses equipped with facilities that can automatically measure and display the temperature, humidity, sunshine percentage, carbon dioxide concentration and soil of indoor greenhouses. 

“The greenhouses have mechanized processes of spreading soil mixed with fertilizer on the nursery and sowing and covering up seeds with soil, thus reducing nursery area to 1/10, labour force to 1/15 and farming materials to 1/4 as compared to outdoor rice seedlings,” said Ri Yong Sik, a staffer of the Kumchon Vegetable Farm in Mangyongdae District.

According to him, the method makes it possible to shorten the period between sowing and transplantation by half. As there is no need to pluck young rice plants from seedbeds, it enables them to transplant rice in the right time. 

And it brings more profits since it helps them cultivate rice seedlings safely and healthily, unaffected by natural conditions and do vegetable farming after cultivating rice seedlings, he said. 

Cold-bed rice seedling cultivation outdoors requires 100-120 phyong of seedbed per hectare, 50-55 days for growing young rice plants, 400-480 square metres of vinyl sheets, about 120-130 man-days of labour and various many other materials for seedbed. And the cultivation of nutrient cold seedlings demands 25-30 phyong of seedbed per hectare, 30-40 days for raising seedlings, 120-140 square metres of vinyl sheets and 40-50 man-days of labour. 

But the method requires less manpower and farming materials and provides favourable conditions for mechanization as the nutrient cold seedling cultivation at greenhouses needs less seedbed area per hectare and shorter raising period.

Such success is not confined to Mangyongdae District. South Hwanghae Province built certain sizes of vinyl sheet greenhouses in cities and counties this year and is bringing about good results by transplanting rice seedlings grown there.

Rice seedlings grown at greenhouses are forming green carpets on paddies.