September is rice time in northern Italy: along the Po Valley, between Vercelli, Novara, and Pavia, the combines roll through fields that only weeks earlier were shallow sheets of water. Production leads the story, but canals, mills, and the mondine dorms still give the season its context. Today, harvest runs from mid-September into October, depending on the variety and weather, and it is a fast and mechanical affair, a far cry from the era when the mondine themselves stood bent in flooded paddies pulling grass by hand.
Modern harvest is straightforward to read from the roadside: once the panicles turn straw-gold and grain moisture drops to the target range, growers drain fields and bring in combines that cut, thresh, and clean in one pass. Then, the rough rice goes to dryers, where warm air lowers moisture further to make storage safe and preserve quality. What the traveler sees is quick turnover: a levee opened here, a machine there, trailers heading to the farmyard.
