Ceremonial Harvest of Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE) at IRRI

Since 1963, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org ) has grown first two, then, from 1968, three crops of rice per year on that one hectare, in what is known as the Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE).

To kick off IRRI's week-long alumni homecoming on 19 April 2010, a ceremonial harvest of the 138th LTCCE crop was held. Joining in the activities were two past directors general, Klaus Lampe and Ronald Cantrell and IRRI;s current deputy director general for research, Achim Dobermann

The time between harvesting one crop and planting another has been minimal (2 to 3 weeks), and crop residue has been removed after harvest, rather than incorporated into the soil.

Dr. Roland Buresh, who took over as the LTCCEs lead researcher in 2000, explains that unique properties of submerged soils make rice different from any other crop. Because of prolonged flooding, he says, farmers are able to conserve soil organic matter and also receive free input of N from biological sources. This biological N fixation amounts to around 25 kilograms per hectare per crop, enough to help ensure a stable yield of about 3 tons per hectare per crop in the absence of applied fertilizer N. And, this has been sustained for the 47 years of the LTCCE.

For another video about the LTCCE, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkwN_48ycTU

Category:

Education

Tags:

• LTCCE
• Harvest
• Long-Term
• Continuous
• Cropping
• Experiment
• IRRI
• International
• Rice
• Research
• Institute