The purpose of this recommendation is to avoid having to sow
or transplant the second crop "out of season," after mid-August.
Crops sown after this date, in the September-November period,
have been shown to result in significant yield reductions due to
low temperatures and lack of solar radiation. Also, major damage
is caused by the winds of January and February, which affect the
rice plants in the flowering stages, causing a high percentage of
unfilled spikelets ("vaneo," in terms of the farmers).
 Considering these recommendations, what do the farmers
practice? The planting dates most commonly used in two major
rice production areas, the Mao and Nagua regions, are depicted
in Diagram 1. As can be seen, the practice of Mao farmers coin-
cides rather well with CEDIA's recommendations. On the other
hand, Nagua farmers generally establish their first crop much
later than recommended, in March-April instead of December-
January. The reason is that problems with the supply of irrigation
water expose crops sown in December andJanuary to the drought
spells of the February-March period, at that phase of plant
development when water is most needed.
 Therefore, farmers prefer to sow when the rains start, in April.
However, this means that the large majority of farmers will not be
able to establish the,second crop before September, which leads
to "sowing out of season," in terms of the rice research institute.
Farmers in the Nagua region, although not conceptualizing this
as sowing "in" or "out" of season, do acknowledge that their se-
cond crops always yield less than their first. Many of them fre-
quently lose money on the latter, and during interviews affirmed
they were hesitant to sow the second cropping cycle in the future.

 DIAGRAM 1: Rice production systems in the Dominican Republic
 (1) Double Cropping.



 1. Recommendation of Centro de Investigaciones Arroceras
 D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F





 I I I I I I I I I I I
 2. Farmers' practice in Mao Region (Laguna Salada)
 D F M A M J I A S O N D J F

 first second first

 3. Farmers' practice in nagua Region (El Pozo and El Aguacate)
 S D JF MI AI MIJIJ IA S O N D J F
 DJMIJ I


Ratooning: a Viable Alternative for Double Cropping?
 A ratoon is the crop produced by tillers regenerated from the
 rice stubble after harvesting (Cuevas Perez, 1981, page 2). As such,
 it can be considered as an alternative to sowing a second cropping
 cycle: after the original crop is harvested, the regrowth can be
 managed as a second crop. The growing cycle of a ratoon is only
 three months, as opposed to 4.5 to 5.5 months for a sown crop.
 In the Dominican Republic, farmers generally cut back the
 plants remaining after harvest to a height of 3 to 7 cm. After that
 the crop is managed as a "normal" crop, although the use of in-


VOL. XX-PROCEEDINGS of the CARIBBEAN FOOD CROPS SOCIETY


puts is generally more limited. For instance, Nagua farmers were
found to apply only half the amount of fertilizer applied to a
direct seeded or transplanted crop.
 Ratooning is probably most widely spread in the arid north-
western region of the Dominican Republic. Some farmers there
treat their ratoons even better than their planted crops, par-
ticularly in the form of careful water management and the ap-
plication of extra fertilizer. Yields of up to 5 tons of paddy per
hectare were reported by farmers, as opposed to 3 to 3.5 in the
Nagua region. However, yields of 1 to 2 tons/ha are common,
particularly in less levelled fields.
 The above mentioned data stem from case studies and a survey
executed in 1983 in three Land Reform Projects: The Laguna
Salada in the Mao region, and El Pozo and El Aguacate in the
Nagua region. On the average, about one-third of Dominican
rice production comes from Land Reform projects (Cuevas Perez,
1983). Part of these are organized as collectives; in the remainder,
beneficiaries work on separate plots about 3 ha in size. The con-
siderations presented in the following are also based on interviews
held in these areas.
 Why do farmers practice ratooning? Basically, the reasons can
be divided in two broad categories. Some farmers ratoon because
double cropping would imply too high a risk. In the first case,
farmers want to ratoon, and practice it as an alternative to double
cropping; in the second, they are forced to ratroon, and practice
ratooning as an alternative to single cropping. The first case is
mainly encountered in the Laguna Salada Land Reform project.
Apparently, ratooning is much more popular there than in the
Nagua region. Part of the reason is undoubtedly the fact that, in
the less favourable conditions of most of the El Pozo project and
all of El Aguacate, ratoons do not produce as well as in the
Laguna Salada area. Good levelling and water control are
necessary to obtain a satisfactory yield in ratooning, and both
these factors are constraints in parts of the El Pozo and the entire
El Aguacate project.
 However, even more important as an explanation for the
relative unpopularity of ratooning in the Nagua region seems to
be tradition. Although little is known about its origin, ratooning
has been a common practice in the Mao region since the 1950's.
On the other hand, in the Nagua area double cropping (although
in much smaller areas than currently) has been the traditional
production system, even before the construction of a major irriga-
tion infrastructure in the 1950's.
 The need for good levelling and water control as a precondition
for successful ratooning was very clearly illustrated in the Laguna
Salada case study interviews. Basically three categories of farmers
could be distinguished: those with good conditions who practised
ratooning, those with fair conditions who double cropped, and a
third category with poor conditions who also practised ratooning.
Interestingly, most farmers of the second, double cropping
category professed that they would shift to ratooning as soon as
they had levelled their plots sufficiently. However, under present
conditions, ratooning did not yield enough to make it an attractive
alternative for double cropping. The reason was that large patches
of the stubble, which are most vulnerable just after being cut to the
desired height, were affected by too much or too little water.
 The third category, working under poor conditions, chose to ra-
toon because they were not able, or did not want, to sow a second
crop because of expected shortages of irrigation water, machinery
for land preparation, or credit. With a minimum investment (apart
from the cutting, only some weeding and the harvest) these
farmers would still obtain some benefit in the form of a few sacks of
rice, mainly for home consumption.
 Table 1 shows that in the Laguna Salada area, the most impor-
tant reason mentioned by farmers for the preference for ratooning
is its higher benefits. A cost and benefit analysis of a transplanted
crop and a ratoon is presented in Table 2. Production costs are bas-


97