# Planting Wild Rice in Marsh



## Dubya

I am interested in planting some wild rice this year in my marsh that holds water all year. The water level is usually between 1 - 2 feet deep. Anyone out there with experience/knowledge in getting wild rice to grow? Any advice is appreciated. Location is central Kansas.


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## Super Swamper

Get rice seed. Ball up seed in balls of clay. Throw in impoundment. Keep ducks and geese away until October. Keep clean water flowing into site through summer months. "It's that easy!" Not really..unfortunately. But what I mentioned above is a tried and true method. Search "rice" on this forum for other ideas. 

Tricky plant.


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## KSU86

Super Swamper said:


> Get rice seed. Ball up seed in balls of clay. Throw in impoundment. Keep ducks and geese away until October. Keep clean water flowing into site through summer months. "It's that easy!" Not really..unfortunately. But what I mentioned above is a tried and true method. Search "rice" on this forum for other ideas.
> 
> Tricky plant.



I have 15lbs left over from past failed attempts. What the heck, I'm up for trying the balled clay strategy. How many rice seeds per ball of clay?


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## DRC

KSU86 said:


> I have 15lbs left over from past failed attempts. What the heck, I'm up for trying the balled clay strategy. How many rice seeds per ball of clay?


Where are you storing it? I think there are strict requirements for keeping the seed viable. I recall Mr. Lee saying they keep the seed in the water through winter untill they plant in the spring ??????


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## Rudder

I'll play...I too have failed several times with wild rice. I hate it.


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## tripleb

I've had better luck, though somewhat mixed. In June, several years ago, I just hand cast it into the very shallow areas of two ponds. The water levels dropped to due receiving no rain for the next 30 days turning those areas into mud flats. When I returned just before Sept. 1 to see what came up, I could see that the geese had hit the areas hard near where I spread the seed, so I couldn't tell what, if any, rice plants had actually started to come up. However, the duck hunting in the other areas not near a shore was great that season, so it may have helped.


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## bang you'r dead

I just pick it fresh, paddle into some beaver dams, and toss it all over the place, in 1-4 feet of water. Within 3 or 4 years, you have a hard time paddling in it.

Best duck food ever, and you can pick it for your own consumption. A real no-brainer up here.


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## Mr. Lee

If the seed dries out it will not germinate.

I doubt wild rice will establish as far south as Kansas.


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## Super Swamper

There's a southern species (aquatica) that should do just fine in KS.

Buried somewhere in here is the "clay ball" method devised in MD about 10 years ago.


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## Super Swamper

Rudder said:


> I'll play...I too have failed several times with wild rice. I hate it.



The rice project I showed you in Denton a few years back has been struggling because the ducks will not stay off it. Not in spring. Not in summer. They disregard any goose control measures. 

Landowner is now sowing seed 3x per season to get adequate germination.


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## JFG

Enlighten please SS! I have some deep interior borrow ditches that are virgin and need something growing in them . . .


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## Ringbill

I'm not claiming to be any expert, but I've learned a lot from the University of Minnesota Ag dept over the years and have planted it in a variety of locations over the last 40 years.
First off, you can't buy wild rice in the store and expect to plant it.
It must be green, or freshly harvested rice.
At times, we'd harvest it in September, then put it into buckets and fill with fresh WELL water, or lake water. You cannot preserve it using 'city' treated water.
Then we'd go out and plant it right before freezeup, so less of it would be eaten by the birds.
As far as actually planting it, we were doing some large bays, so we'd drain the buckets, then mix the green rice with dry oats and get all this premix into buckets.
That way, the oats help separate some of the green rice, so it broadcasts more evenly, and the rice sinks, but the oats float, so you can see the areas that you have already broadcasted and planted. I'd most often run my little 3hp weedless Evinrude around and stir up the mucky bottom, which in turn gets that rice seed mixed with the muck, increasing germination, which takes place up here in May.

Saying that, I'd be suspect on the viability of trying to plant rice way down south in Kansas. I beleive if you contact Wildlife Nurseries or one of the other wildlife vegetation places in Wisconsin, they could better help steer you onto real workable vegetation for your specific area. Perhaps Millet or?

I've found that wild rice is VERY per snickety and fussy on where it will grow and especially where it will prosper.
Up here, the best conditions are shallow 1-3 foot water, that is not stagnant
It also just loves the loon crap or mucky bottoms best. The harder bottoms make it harder to root.

Local Canadas just love to get into these bays with their young and 'crop' the tops of the rice as it starts standing up from the floating leaf stage.
Needless to say, that destroys the reproductive capacity of those plants.

Get on the phone with one of the Wisconsin nurseries that specialize in all types of acquatic plants and they can be a tremendous help with gaining knowledge and access to the seeds and young plants you may want to put in

Ringbill


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## Super Swamper

JFG said:


> Enlighten please SS! I have some deep interior borrow ditches that are virgin and need something growing in them . . .



There are tons of options for the ditch banks (even in the water), although it's bigger duck food (duck potato and similar plants). Deep in the water, if you have a little bit of flow and not totally nasty conditions, eastern wild rice (Z aquatica, not the Z. arborea some of these great lakes guys are talking about), or maybe even commercial rice might work. It needs to get in the water early in spring, and protected from heavy duck and goose predation.

Once it grows up and breaks the water surface, it is susceptible to goose munching again. Once the seeds pop, grackles etc. will tend to beat up the plants. Luckily that's July/August with just 60-90 days until duck season.

Wild rice is an incredibly high quality bird food. Problem is, the birds know it too.


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