It is rice harvest season. Sabah and Sarawak are celebrating their Harvest Festivals as well. It was perfect timing to visit Sekinchan, the Rice Bowl of Selangor, around this time of the year to photograph beautiful golden paddy fields and watch harvesting activities being done.
Traditional paddy planting & rice harvest in Sekinchan:
Field clearing - January to February
Transplanting - March
Crop grows from March to May
Crop matures at the end of May
Harvest at the end of May to June
Repeat!
Field clearing - July to August
Transplanting - September
Crop grows from September to November
Crop matures at the end of November
Harvest at the end of November to December
There is a Rice Processing Factory in Sekinchan. Before the land if prepared for trans-plantation, the factory would be soaking and planting the rice seeds. When the land is ready, the rice seeds would be transplanted into the fields. Thereafter, there would be weeding and fertilization activities. Then, the flooding of the land. Finally, harvesting.
I was most excited to visit Sekinchan at this time of the year. The paddy fields looked glorious. Plenty for me to photograph. There is about 4300 acres of land for paddy farming here. Imagine!
The fields have been drained, ready for harvest.
Look at the panicle or flower cluster. The yellow color and its weight show that they are ripe.
I was so thrilled to watch the Baler in action. It picked up the rice straws and compact them into bales for easy handling. The rice straw is a rice by-product produced when harvesting paddy. They are usually burnt and left on the field, ploughed down as a soil improver or used as feed for livestock.
What a beautiful sunny day. Perfect!
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