Grains & Cereals

Rice

Grown moist and aerated on permanent beds, not flooded — Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) under PQNK, among the most-viewed crops on our channel.

Like every PQNK crop, Rice is governed by the same four principles: no soil disturbance, no inundation, permanent biological cover and maximum biodiversity. What follows is specific to Rice — the engineering and management, not the underlying biology.

Overview

Rice under PQNK moves away from continuous flooding entirely. Conventional paddy cultivation keeps fields under standing water for most of the season; PQNK instead grows Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) on permanent mulched raised beds, with soil kept moist and aerated rather than inundated — closer to how rice actually experiences water in nature, through monsoon, dew and groundwater moving through open, root-bound soil, not a permanent flood.

PQNK Practices Applied

Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) on permanent raised beds, five rows spaced 8 inches apart on 42-inch beds, at roughly 65,000 plants per acre
Soil kept moist and aerated rather than continuously flooded — water treated as a precise input, not a default weed-suppression tool
Organic mulch carried over from the prior crop's residue, in place of standing water, to suppress weeds and hold moisture
Soil managed as a living system through aeration and organic matter, rather than through mechanical weeding or intensive tillage

Documented Field Result — Pakistan

PQNK's direct-seeded, mulched-bed rice is credited with cutting water use by over 90% against continuously flooded conventional rice (from roughly 5,000 to about 321 liters per kilogram of rice produced), while eliminating the agrochemical residues that cause export rejections. The same beyond-flooding logic is reported to already be in use in rice production in Israel, Korea and China.

Related Knowledge Papers

The full science and field data behind rice under PQNK.