Field burning in the mountainous agricultural areas of western Japan—Rice field and levee

Abstract

In mountainous agricultural regions of western Japan, the labor shortage caused by the aging population has made it difficult to manage the levee slopes around rice paddies. Therefore, we considered converting the weedy levee into lawn levee to reduce the number of mowing times and to set fires during the agricultural off‐season from October to April. As first step, to understand the current state of burning of the weedy levee, we conducted a survey of burn traces on the surface of the rice fields and on the slopes of levees from October to April in mountainous agricultural areas of Hiroshima prefecture. Burn traces on the surfaces of rice fields were found in many places, both across the entire field and in parts, in October after the rice harvest, which is thought to be influenced by the weather before the burning. Burn traces on the slopes of rice levees were found in many places, across the entire field, in March before farm work began. There were also many burn traces in patches in both October and March. It is thought that burning was carried out after grass was cut and collected. The height of lawn levee is much smaller than that of current weeds. By converting the vegetation to Zoysia grass turf on levees, it will be possible to carry out safe burning, which is thought to lead to reduced labor required for managing rice levees in Japan's mountainous agricultural regions.