Korean Farmers Harvesting Rice

Korea, is just beautiful.  There are Rice Patties all over.  Here is a patty that is ready to harvest.

The rice had to be harvested at just the right time.  If the Grains are green when they are harvested, they will be too damp. the grains will rot. If the farmers harvest the rice too late, it will be too dry and the grains will crack. The rice starts off green and when it's ready to Harvest it turns a beautiful golden color.  

Close up of the rice bundles, You can see the plant is still green.  The golden color you see is from the actual rice.

Rice ready to harvest, do you see all the little rice?

Farmer after they hand pick the rice lay them in the sun to dry the rice. 

They use a black screen and put it on the side walk.

They rack the rice in a single layer so it can all dry. It's hard work harvesting rice.

We all got to feel the rice.  It was really awesome!

These are the left over shocks, from the Korean Farmers that Hand Harvested the Rice. 

Some farmers use a  machine called a combine harvester.
This machine cuts and separates the rice grain from the plant straw. 

When the Combine harvester is full. You can see the blue white and red part of the machine
it's sticking out from the machine indicating that the machine is full and they need to empty the rice.

The Rice Farmers have huge bags and the machine has an arm that stretches out and the empty the rice into these bags.
Each truck can hold approximately 8 bags of rice.

Here are the "Straws" or plant that held the rice. This process is pretty fast.
They did one little patty while we watched.  It was so fascinating.  We learned a lot about rice.
I wish We could understand the language. It would have been fun to talk to the farmers.