IRRI: Raising rice productivity in rainfed environments

Senior Scientist Dave Mackill introduces the program of the International Rice Research Institute IRRI; http://irri.org ) on Raising Productivity in Rainfed Environments: attacking the roots of poverty. It is part of IRRI's strategic plan, Bringing Hope, Improving Lives: http://www.irri.org/BringingHope/ImprovingLives.pdf

Poverty in Asia is particularly common among rural populations that depend on rainfed agriculture with rice as the staple food and principal source of employment and income. Rice yields in these rainfed ecosystems remain low at 1.0 to 2.5 tons per hectare and are unstable, primarily due to abiotic stresses, especially drought, flooding, and adverse soils.

In the past decade, major scientific progress has been made. New tools have been developed in crop physiology, genomics, biotechnology, and nutrient and water interaction in drought conditions; geographic information systems (GIS); and simulations. This greatly increases the likelihood of success in developing and deploying high-yielding rice varieties with tolerance for abiotic stresses. The high risk of crop failure and low response to inputs of the traditional varieties currently being used by farmers in these rainfed areas discourage investment in appropriate management options and inputs.

Replacing these traditional, low-yielding varieties with high-yielding, input-responsive, stress-tolerant varieties will encourage farmers to invest more in fertilizers and other management practices because of the assured returns.

In 2007, significant progress was made in addressing the problems of rainfed areas through research focusing on the five major outputs of the program. Research on drought tolerance identified superior donors exhibiting consistent tolerance in multilocation testing. Elite breeding lines and hybrids were identified that have high yield potential and can give double the yields of existing varieties under drought stress.

Large-effect quantitative trait loci (known as QTLs, these are areas of the genome that increase or decrease the expression of a trait to a particular degree) controlling drought tolerance have been validated for both upland and aerobic environments (in aerobic conditions, rice is grown in unflooded fields, like wheat or maize; rice bred for such environments is known as aerobic rice).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• rice
• IRRI
• rainfed
• environments
• poverty
• Asia
• staple
• food