"Jalurn Suk Rice Seed Research Center"

This past Thursday afternoon, the 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Jalurn Suk School transformed their classroom into a "Rice Seed Research Center." P Jansri led our young research teams to his fields in Tabthai village and after a short introduction to the six varieties of rice we'd be harvesting and recording their characteristics, everyone got right into it. As children of rice farmers, all the students have plenty of experience helping with the harvest, but these varieties were one's they have never seen before. The vast majority of Surin rice farmers grow only Jasmine 105, as it demands the highest price and is the only grain that the mills can process. Yet farmers like Jansri (below, showing the students how to tie up their samples) are growing a diversity of rice varieties to increase the biodiversity in their fields, preserve local seed varieties and, simply enough, to eat themselves.
The students recorded characteristics of Black Sticky rice, Basmati, Red Jasmine (heavy variety), Tamarind and Fragrant Jasmine . They split into small teams to each focus on one type of rice and then came together afterward to compare results. Each group had a special form that recorded plant height, color, grains per cluster, length of leaves, width of stem, and other distinguishing traits.

Black Sticky Rice
Red Jasmine (heavy variety) and close-up, below

Tamarind Rice
Basmati

The students had a lot of fun out in the fields, harvesting the samples and jotting down information. Below are some shots from Thursday:

The Tamarind research team

Group photo!

At the end of the day, everyone got to take a sample of each variety home. P Jansri encouraged everyone to ask their parents if they were interested in any of the varieties for next season - the Tamor farmers' group is hoping to expand their community seed saving initiative and need more farmers to plant these "new varieties" (have been around for a long time, but no longer planted). By getting the students out into the fields and taking a closer look at these varieties, we hope they gain a new appreciation for the diversity of rice seeds that farmers can plant.