Question

Explain how flooding rice fields reduces the need for herbicides and pesticides in rice farming.
small paragraph

Answer 1

Flooding rice fields creates conditions—standing water and reduced soil oxygen—that suppress most upland weeds and many soil-borne pests while rice, a semi-aquatic crop, tolerates submergence. The water drowns or prevents germination of non‑aquatic weed seedlings, disrupts life cycles of some insects and pathogens, and encourages aquatic predators that eat pests, so farmers can rely less on chemical herbicides and pesticides.