Adlay (Job's Tears) Is Nutritious, Delicious and Fresh: Agriculture and Food Agency Promotes Cultivation in the North to Raise Self-Sufficiency

The first attempt to grow adlay (Job's tears) in the north was a success! Rice paddies converting to coarse grains now have one more option. The Northern Region Branch of the Agriculture and Food Agency today (the 31st) held an "Adlay Promotion Demonstration Observation Meeting" in Guanyin District, Taoyuan City, where three farmers including Lin Feng-te, head of the No. 1 Coarse Grain Production and Marketing Group of Guanyin District, Taoyuan City, demonstrated the cultivation of adlay (Job's tears). The trial planting area reached 2 hectares, with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides applied throughout, balancing environmental friendliness with yield. The estimated dry adlay yield can reach 1,500-2,000 kg per hectare.

Adlay Can Be Grown in Paddy Fields, and Most Farm Machinery Is Interchangeable with Rice

The variety trialed this time was Taichung No. 3, cultivated by the paddy field transplanting method. The Northern Region Branch of the Agriculture and Food Agency stated that domestic adlay cultivation methods can be divided into paddy field transplanting and dry field direct seeding; although paddy field transplanting has higher production costs, the seedlings develop uniformly, unlike dry field direct seeding, which may produce problems such as uneven seed germination and excessive differences in plant development.

"Actually, growing adlay isn't very hard to do." Lin Feng-te said that adlay cultivation is almost exactly the same as rice, and even the seedling transplanting and drying machines can be used together. The Northern Region Branch added that farmers in the northern region mostly have paddy field farming experience, and since adlay can use rice transplanting machines for seedling transplanting and mechanical harvesting, farmers converting to adlay do not need to buy new farm machinery at all, achieving labor-saving cultivation.

Although the seedling transplanting and drying machines can use rice farm machinery, Lin Feng-te pointed out that the later-stage harvest of adlay must use a "coarse grain harvester," "because adlay panicles are longer than rice panicles; if a rice panicle is 10 cm long, an adlay panicle may grow to 20 to 25 cm." Only a coarse grain harvester can be used to pull the complete adlay panicle into the machine.