Rice and fish culture together

CATALYSThelps to Unlock Your Potential
An Institution for Training ,Research and Teaching
Training
on
Increase Agricultural Production through IWRM
Presenter
Md. Nazim Uddin Mondal

CATALYSThelps to Unlock Your
Potential
Rice-Fish culture Technology
Introduction:
Integrated fish farming is a technique of fish culture with
other organisms (animal/s or plant/s). Major objective of
this technique is to get maximum output through involving
minimum input supply in minimum time duration. Rice-
Fish farming is the culture of rice-fish in a same piece of
land. In Bangladesh, number of fishpond may be fixed but
amount of paddy/rice field is much and a large portion of
these fields are suitable for Rice-Fish culture. More
production can be achieved in Rice-Fish culture in
comparison to the rice culture alone.

Advantages of Rice-Fish culture:
Production of fish as additional crop.
Insect or pest that attacks the paddy can be controlled by
stocked fish as fish takes those organisms as feed.
Fecal or semi-fecal materials discharge from the fish body
serve as fertilizer in the rice field as a result fertility of the
field increase.
More profitable than rice cultivation alone. 60% more profit
in Boro season and 90% more profit in Aman season can be
achieved.
Easy technology and low cost involvement.
Great acceptability especially to the rural people.

History and Development of Rice-Fish
culture:
History of Rice-Fish culture is quite old and first started in
ancient China about 2000 years ago. In course of time, this
practice became introduced in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand,
India and many other countries of the world. Lately, Azolla is
cultured with Rice-Fish in China.
Traditional system of Rice-Fish culture:
In traditional culture system, several small ditches were
prepared in the rice field and tree branches or bushes were
placed for creating suitable artificial habitat to attract wild
fishes. Sometimes fry of Carpio was stocked. Production was
much low and it was about 50 kg per hectare.

Recent Developments:
Since nineties, several NGOs (Non Government
Organizations) worked on Rice-Fish culture and both
nursery and table fish are producing through this
technique. Prawn like Macrobrachium rosenbergii is now
also stoked for more profit and diversified product. Major
fish species used are Labeo rohita (Rui), Catla
catla (Catla), Cirrhina mrigala (Mrigel), Cyprinus
carpio (Common and Mirror carp), Hypophthalmichthys
molitrix (Silver carp), Tilapia sp. (Tilapia), Thai barb
(Puntius gonionotus) and giant freshwater prawn (M.
rosenbergii). Production is much higher than traditional
system which is about 200 kg/ha.

Culture technique:
Fish culture with rice can be practiced in two ways- (1)
rice-fish together in the same time (concurrent system)
and (2) fish culture after harvesting rice (alternative
system). In Bangladesh, generally this culture is practiced
during Boro and Amon seasons. Suitable paddy type are-
Amon season : BR-11, BRRI Dhan 51,52, Patjak (Deep
water Aman)
Boro season : BR-16, BR-14, BRRI Dhan 29, Hybrid rice
Varieties..

Culture of Rice-Fish together/Concurrent system:
Generally practiced during Aman season in moderate to low
paddy fields where water logging exists for 4-5 months
naturally. Mirror carp and Thai carb are highly suitable for
this practice but Tilapia or giant freshwater prawn can also
be stocked with rice.
Fish culture after harvesting rice/alternative
system:
In this technique, fish are stocked in the paddy field after
harvesting rice from the land. 6-7 months rearing of fish is
possible by this way until rice plantation in the next season.
Carp and barb species are suitable for stocking but grass
carp(Ctenopharyngodon idella) can also be stocked. In case of
grass carp stocking, precaution must be taken so that this
fish can not eat young paddy.

a. Site selection and infrastructure building:
Site selection:
Water holding capacity of the selected plot’s
soil must be good enough so that soil can hold
water easily. Loamy or Clay-loamy soils are
suitable for Rice-Fish culture. Selected plot
should be low land and would contain water
naturally for 7-10 months but must be secure
from flood.
Management Steps

Infrastructure building: Preparation of ditch and
canal: At least a single ditch must be excavated in
the rice field. Ditch should be of 3 feet water depth
and can be 20% of the total field. This ditch will
serve as shelter during hot season and make the
harvesting easier. Several canals should be dug
connecting ditch for free movement of fishes.
Enough space must be left from land boundary so
that dyke would not be broken. Ditch can be
excavated in different position of the plot, some
models are shown in the following figure
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Different models of the position of rice filed and ditches in
rice-fish culture plot

Providing shelters for prawn:
If someone wishes to stock prawn, then it is
essential to provide some sort of substances
which will serve as shelter for prawn. As prawn
change its shell as growth advances (i.e.
molting), it remains very susceptible to attack by
other animals during molting period. Substances
like coconut branch, palm branch or other tree
branches can be supplied in the water for this
purpose.

Creation of shade facilities:
Shading is essential during high temperature
and excess rainfall to save stocked species
from unfavorable condition. Bamboo splits
made mat, coconut or palm branch,
cultivation of vegetable on rack on dyke can
provide shade for the fishes.
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b. Land preparation:
Border, dyke of land needs to be reconstructed high
enough ( 60 cm) if necessary . Weeds must be
controlled and excess bottom mud must be removed.
Predatory or unwanted fish species or other animal
will be removed from the culture plot. Lime (1
kg/decimal; 2-3 kg/decimal for red soil) and
fertilizers (usually cow dung, urea, and TSP) should
be applied at a proper dose.

c. Nursery preparation:
It is an optional measure to prepare nursery area
for temporary rearing of prawn or shrimp PL. 10-
15% area of total field can be used as nursery.
Nursery is often refers to as ‘Pocket Gher’.
Generally shrimp or prawn PL reared in this
nursery for 20-25 days. Stocking density should
be 1500-2000 PL (1.5-2 cm size) per decimal area.

d. Transfer or stocking of prawn juvenile / fish to the
rice-field:
Prawn PL needs to be stocked during evening as they are more
sensitive than fin fish fry and can tolerate sudden changes in
temperature and dissolved oxygen level in water. If they stocked
during evening the stocked PL will get more time at night to
adopt with the environment. Stocking density will be 10000-15000
PL per hectare area.
Other fin fish fry can be stock in the morning or in the afternoon
time. Stocking density will be 20-25 individual per decimal for
monoculture depending on level of water and other related
factors. In case of mixed stocking, 20 individuals should be
stocked. Stocking size should be 5-8 cm depending on types of
fish species. One thing should be kept in mind, that it would not
be a very wise decision to stock prawn and other bottom dweller
fin fish species together as they can make competition each other
for food and space.

Other fin fish fry can be stock in the morning or in the
afternoon time. Stocking density will be 20-25
individual per decimal for monoculture depending on
level of water and other related factors. In case of mixed
stocking, 20 individuals should be stocked. Stocking
size should be 5-8 cm depending on types of fish
species. One thing should be kept in mind, that it would
not be a very wise decision to stock prawn and other
bottom dweller fin fish species together as they can
make competition each other for food and space.
Transfer or stocking of prawn juvenile /
fish to the rice-field: cont)

e. Other management:
Paddy: Cultivation technique of rice is similar to normal rice
cultivation with certain exception. For free movement of
fish transplanting of rice will be 35cmx12cm or
40cmx10cm line to line and row to row and local deep
water aman variety may be cultivated for deeper water.
Naturally grown weeds in the field must be eradicated
and other harmful insect must be controlled without
using any insecticide.
Fish and prawn: Supplementary feed needs to be supplied
for faster growth of stocked species. Supplementary can
be applied at 3-5% weight of stocked biomass. If
phytoplankton feeder fish like Silver carp stocked in the
rice field, no extra feeds required for this fish.

f. Vegetable production:
Vegetable can be planted on dyke or by making rack made of
available materials (bamboo sticks, vegetable branches without leaves
etc.).
Rice-Fish-Vegetable culture

g. Sampling and Harvesting:
Regular sampling of stocked species is very much
necessary to monitor growth, or to test disease. This
can be done by using seine net in ditch after gathering
the fish there (in ditch).

For maximum benefit, stocked species
must be harvested in proper time. 100%
harvesting is very much possible by
draining out (dewatering) the water of the
field.

Rice and fish culture together

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