IRRI Rice Research has expertise and facilities that would be the envy of any research institution, and is firmly focused on feeding the world.
They are working on the worlds largest collection of rice varieties, some 117,000, and still counting, all in cold storage for the future. They are working hard at mapping Rice genotypes of many of these varieties, this will allow fast-tracking the breeding of new varieties , cutting the time taken to produce a new variety by at least half, but also to select for traits as required. New varieties could be ready to go commercially in as little as 5 years.
They are also focused on education, forming the science partnership, GRISP, offering 200 places annually to students from all over the world, the opportunity to study, and work with their scientists. IRRI also work extensively with farmers, extension people in the Philippines, as well as people from other countries in an effort to increase world Rice production in a sustainable way.
Thier breeders are interested in creating a C4 type Rice, basically a rice variety with the vigour of a corn plant. They are looking at the possability of developing a variety with higher Iron levels, and higher vitimain levelsto assist in providing an easy way to increase the health of all those who consume rice. All geared to increasing the production of Rice to feed the growing world population.
Some interesting facts from the day
World demand for Rice is expected to increase 2% per year
3 Billion people rely on Rice
World area planted to Rice has stabilised
Yields are not increasing quickly enough to meet forecast world demand
We also visited their great Rice Museum which maps out the history of Rice and has a large display of farming practices, tools, from the Philippines.
The day started with a presentation by Duncan Mackintosh, Development directer, and Liegh Vial, Head of the experiment station and former Nuffield Scholar, 2008. we then wre taken on a tour by james McQuilty, research scientist of the station. 1st stop was a look at the oldest trails, countinous rice for 52 years, with out any nitrogen fert for that time. . Not thier normal practise, but an intersting comparison to other trials. From there we looked at trials designed to break the continous rice cropping cycle, with alternate crops, corn, mung beans etc, in an effort to prove to local farmers that they could be more productive and profitable.
We then saw thier world wide collection of wild rice, which showed graphcally, the amount of variation of rice types from around the world.
After lunch we visited the International Rice Genebank, were we where shown how they prepare grain for long term storage, at low temp, some at degrees, foe 100 years, to safeguard the survival of varieties.
from there we went to the labs, and discussed how, using Molecular markers, they map the geneotypes of a variety, and how that they can identify traits, that they can transfere to a new variety, to enhance the new variety, speeding up the selection pocess of new varieties.
we finished the day looking at thier rice Museum, with an interesting display of old farmimg practices/tools from the phillipines and china, Interesting Rice products, and a fantatsic display of birds that frequent rice paddies from around the world.
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