Rice Cultivation in Oosima-gun, Yamaguti Prefecture 4. The Beginning and Development of the Early Season Culture

Oosima-gun, which consists of a main island and many small neighboring island in the Inland Sea, was struck by many heavy typhoons during the last 20 years. The crop failures of rice caused by the storms and high tides accompaning them were very severe. The ealy season culture of rice plants was began in 1944 for the purpose of avoiding the injury caused by typhoons in autumn. It is developing as a revolutionary technique for avoiding not only typhoons but also drought injury. The management of dairy farming is being improved by the cultivation of forage plants as winter crops after the harvest of rice with the early season culture. The management of Satsuma-orange growing is also being improved, because the peaks of labor in June and November are broken with the introduction of this new technique and the water saved by this technique is employed for the irrigation of the orange orchards in August.