'Father of hybrid rice' Yuan Longping speaks in consortium meeting

Yuan Longping, regarded as the 'father of hybrid rice,' gave the keynote speech during the sixth annual meeting of members of the Hybrid Rice Development Consortium (HRDC) on 2 April. Professor Yuan  talked about progress made in the breeding of 'super hybrid rice.'

Other topics discussed during the meeting were:

• IRRI's new breeding structure (Eero Nissila)
• Rice supply, demand, and trade market outlook (Sam Mohanty, IRRI) 
• Progress of hybrid rice R&D at CIAT (Edgar Torres)
• PRISM: Crop monitoring system (Tri Deri Setiyono)
• Mechanized hybrid rice production in the U.S. (Jose Plaza, RiceTec)
• Disease screening and marker lab service for HRDC members (Michael Thomson and Casiana Vera Cruz)
• HRDC report (Fangming Xie)
• MTA for hybrid rice materials at IRRI (Elsie Quaite-Randall)

The HRDC has 82 members from both the public and the private sector. The meeting was held at IRRI Headquarters in Los Baños.

Participants visited the Grain Quality and Nutrition Center, Genotyping Services Laboratory, Blast Nursery, and the HRDC Multilocation Replicated Yield Trial.

They also made selections of early-generation breeding lines (F2 and F3 stages) on 1 and 3 April, and attended the 1st National Hybrid Rice Congress (3-5 April) organized by PhilRice and the Philippine Department of Agriculture.




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Bangladesh: Extension staff undergo rice production training

Staff of partner NGOs of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project attended the 2-day Rice Production Technology training course held in Faridpur on 6-7 April 2013.

Twenty-one field staff of the Society Development Committee, Jagoroni Chakra Foundation, and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee participated in the course, which was organized through funding from USAID for capacity building of extension staff.

Topics covered in the course were: modern rice varieties, principal rice production practices, quality seed production, and postharvest technologies.



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Bangladesh: Field visit assures partners of wider technology spread

A field visit to trial and demonstration plots of rice-sunflower and rice-sesame cropping systems showcased improved agronomic practices in rice seed production.

The visit assured partners of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) and IRRI of good progress toward wider dissemination of such practices and technologies in the next cropping season.

Joining the field visit were key persons from the Directorate of Agriculture Extension, agrotechnology experts from Khulna University, cropping systems specialists from the Jessore Hub of CSISA, and representatives of partner NGOs Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha, Uttaran, Socio-Economic Development Organization for the Poor, and Ashroy Foundation.

The activity was organized by the CSISA-IRRI team of Khulna Hub.



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Bangladesh: Short-duration rice allows for sunflower crop afterwards

A farmer’s field day on sunflower cultivation in rice-based systems focused on the use of short-duration rice varieties during the aman season.

Farmers shared how they used to cultivate local rice varieties (e.g., Sada mota, Lal mota, BR22, and BR23) in the aman (July-November) season. All of these are long-duration varieties and harvest can drag up to the end of December, after which other crops such as wheat, maize, lentil, mustard, and sunflower can no longer be grown.

Earlier, upon advise from the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), 5 farmers took the initiative to grow short-duration T. Aman rice. By November, the farmers were done with the harvest and were then able to plant sunflower in the same land.

Sunflower oil is an important household commodity, and is also a source of extra income for farmers.

Fifty farmers joined the field day, held on 4 April 2013 at Chandpasha of Babuganj Upazila in Barisal District. The event was organized by CSISA-IRRI Barisal Hub.



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IRRI Annual Report wins ACE silver award

The IRRI Annual Report has consistently received top awards from the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) for several years now, and its 2011 edition was recently named for the Silver Award in the electronic publications class.

The award will be formally presented on 11-14 June in Indianapolis, during the ACE and National Extension Technology Conference.


IRRI Director General Bob Zeigler congratulated the AR team for "keeping IRRI in the spotlight."

The award-winning AR, which comes in a tandem print and interactive CD format, is produced by IRRI's Communication and Publishing Services.


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Darwinian scientist is guest in researchers' lunch

R. Ford Denison (center) and some of
IRRI's budding scientists.

The Young Researchers Lunch hosted a second guest for March, R. Ford Denison, author of the book, Darwinian Agriculture.

Dr. Denison was at IRRI to give a series of lectures derived from the book and hold discussions and debate with IRRI researchers. He shared his perspectives on agriculture and evolution, saying that he believes situations in nature may not necessarily be best for agriculture.

Attendees during the lunch meeting were Crystal Concepcion, Joseph Sandro, Govinda Rizal, John Carlos Ignacio, and Michelle Anne Bunquin.

The Young Researchers Lunch is a monthly meeting for scientists who are in the early stages of their career. Its aim is to provide an opportunity for discussion with senior scientists on a range of topics on science, including career paths.


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19 IRRI staff undergo data collection and encoding course

The first offering of Research Data Management (RDM) 11, or Data collection and encoding for research technicians, was held today (26 March).

The course aims to impart good practices in handling research data, knowledge, and techniques to enable research technicians to effectively use spreadsheets during data encoding. The technicians were also taught to use an Android tablet device using FieldLab v. 2.4 and other spreadsheet apps for data collection.

Data collection is a crucial step in managing research data. Accuracy of data collection and encoding into spreadsheets is crucial in the research data pipeline, being the starting point of data manipulation, checking, and validation. Only when data is deemed accurate can further processing and analysis be made. Data errors, if not found and corrected early, can prove costly.

Nineteen research technicians from IRRI research divisions and their supervisors attended as participants.

The RDM 11 training team is composed of Menchu Bernardo, Icoy Mercado, and Dec Arreza of IRRI's Risk Management and Quality Assurance office.



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