Until the 1970s, only primitive floating rice could be grown in the area.

Floating rice is planted in dry ground and allowed to establish as young plants.

Floating rice faces additional problems due to the depth and time of the water it grows in.

The development of "floating rice plants" that are more able to withstand floods was through selective breeding.

Rice has adapted to deep water in two ways known as traditional talls and floating rice.

Cultivars exist that are adapted to deep flooding, and these are generally called "floating rice".

There are two adaptations which permit the rice to thrive in deeper water, floating rice and traditional talls.

The rice varieties were both low yield, and labor-intensive in comparison to the floating rice grown in Thailand.

African floating rice (Oryza glaberrima) has traditionally been grown in regions near the river that are inundated during the annual flood.

"Floating rice", which grows in fields inundated up to 5m deep, is planted in the deepest areas, and harvested when the water recedes.

Agricultural farming, mostly during the wet season of rice cultivation (seasonal rice and floating rice) is the major economic activity of the people living in the valley.

There are more than 1600 varieties grown in the Mekong Delta; one unique variety is the floating rice whose fairly long stems float in the flooded fields of the delta.

Ethylene is normally produced by plants and diffused into the air but when floating rice is submerged in water this process is disrupted as the gas moves more slowly into water.

In addition to these two regular crops, peasants plant floating rice in April and in May in the areas around the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), which floods and expands its banks in September or early October.

Natural disasters can also damage or destroy deepwater rice crops.

In these countries deepwater rice account for more than 25% of the land used to grow rice.

Some areas in Ecuador grow deepwater rice.

More than 100 million people in South and Southeast Asia rely on deepwater rice for their sustenance.

The nature of the flood is important for success of deepwater rice, with timing and the rate of rise of water affecting survival and crop density.

Deepwater rice emits the least methane, a greenhouse gas, of the wetland rice ecologies, producing approximately three times less than paddy field rice.

Deepwater rice is grown in tropical monsoon climates normally around river deltas and their floodplains mainly in backswamps and natural levees.

The Indica cultivar is the main type of deepwater rice, although varieties of Japonica have been found in Burma, Bangladesh and India.

In South Asia the main area deepwater rice is grown in is the Ganges Brahmaputra basin in India and Bangladesh.