The rainy season has historically shown to be a bad time for planting rice with all the pests that go with it, but a Camarines Sur farmer is proving this wrong.

A new record may be set by 53-year-old rice farmer Aida Badong of Brgy. San Nicolas in Baao, Camarines Sur who harvested 343 cavans (15.15 metric tons, MT) per hectare this season. This surpasses the 335 cavans (16.75 MT) per hectare record set by a Nueva Ecija farmer in the dry season of this year, reported SL Agritech Corp. (SLAC) Spokesperson Anthony Cortes.

"She related her extraordinary harvest came from the use of hybrid seeds and the use of land that is very rich in nutrients since this was formerly a tilapia fishpond for 15 years," Cortes said.

To make it to the books, the office of the Provincial Agriculturist of Camarines Sur has turn in the receipt of the official report as endorsement for the feat.

With already a nutrient-rich soil, Badong even chose to apply some organic fertilizers on her land - two bags of chicken manure and one sack of carbonized rice hull during seed-bed preparation. This she mixed with four bags of 14-14-14 fertilizer.

She also used two sacks of lime, 10 kilos of zinc sulfate, two bags of 14-14-14, one bag of 46-0-0 (urea), and one liter of Planergy (a plant energizer and supplement to increase grain weight and increase soil nutrient absorption) for the one-hectare farm.

Badong has been planting rice since 1985, trying on different varieties including IR-64, IR-12, IR-74 and IR-18 from which she harvested an average of only 80 to 100 cavans.

In 2003, an opportunity came for her to attend a hybrid rice seminar by the Baao local government unit (LGU).

At once, her first try at hybrid turned her harvest around 130 to 180 cavans. But even this surfaced to be a low side of her potential yield as she made it to the record-breaking yield on her fifth season of planting the hybrid variety.

Now, if hybrid rice brings increased benefit to farmers tending big farms, its impact on small farmers is even more stunning.