Rice Today Special Supplement for the STRASA Phase III

www.irri.org

Special Supplement for the STRASA Phase III Inception Meeting and Planning Workshop, 19-23 May 2014

Bangladesh combats the white plague

Creating an oasis with rice

Climate-smart rice for Africa

Swarna-Sub1: Odisha’s food for a goddess

40 Rice Today January-March 2010 41Rice Today January-March 2010

For Glégnon Codjo, a smallholder rice farmer in Benin, climate change is not a matter of debate. It is fast eroding his source

of livelihood. “Our seasons have gone crazy: either the rains don’t come when our crops need them or there is so much rain that our crops rot,” he laments. “I thought God was angry with us. But now, I am told that all this is happening because of climate change.”

Like Glégnon, millions of smallholder farmers in Africa are increasingly grappling with the changing climate around them. Scientists predict that climate change will make extreme weather conditions—such as floods and droughts that can erode soil and lead to crop failure—more common.

When combined with the natural vulnerability and poor adaptive capacity in Africa, these impacts on agriculture could have devastating consequences for food security, poverty, and social welfare. Therefore, climate change is likely to have a far greater impact here

by Savitri Mohapatra

than in other parts of the world. Scientists, governments, and

donors need to take urgent measures to improve the resilience of rural African communities to enable them to better adapt to climate change.

Rice is increasingly becoming important in Africa—both as a food and cash crop—and increased rice production will be crucial to achieving the necessary adaptation. Rice production in the region, however, is affected by such stresses as drought, salinity, and extreme temperatures, all of which are expected to worsen with climate change. To adapt successfully to climate change, farmers need rice technologies with greater tolerance of these stresses.

Since these stresses have always posed a significant threat to rice production, the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) has been developing for several years now rice varieties adapted to local stresses and more efficient farming techniques to help poor farmers better manage their use of the

increasingly scarce water and fragile soil in Africa. Their efforts are now paying rich dividends.

The African cultivated rice species Oryza glaberrima is a rich reservoir of useful genes for resistance to major stresses. This discovery led AfricaRice scientists to cross the African rice species with the higher-yielding Asian O. sativa, which resulted in the birth of a generation of new rice varieties, called NERICA®. The NERICA varieties are promising for rainfed systems in Africa. Farmers like these varieties because they mature early and thus often escape drought.

Using both conventional breeding and biotechnology, AfricaRice scientists continue to develop rice varieties that are even hardier than NERICA by maximizing the diversity of the African rice germplasm pool consisting of O. glaberrima, its wild relatives (O. barthii and O. longistaminata), and O. sativa landraces. These offer a massive potential for use as sources for resistances to major stresses in rice.

New scientific tools, such as molecular biology techniques, help speed up the development of new stress-tolerant rice varieties as they enable AfricaRice breeders and their partners to more efficiently identify and select genes that control stress tolerance. Because of this, the scientists can then successfully transfer the desirable traits from the African rice gene pool into popular varieties.

This work is closely allied with the farmer participatory approach, which is highly effective in ensuring that rice improvement also takes into account farmers’ valuable local knowledge. It is crucial for these new varieties to suit local needs and preferences.

“Thus, climate-resilient rice varieties resulting from this work have already reached farmers’ fields, and more are in the making,” said Dr. Baboucarr Manneh, AfricaRice coordinator for the IRRI-AfricaRice joint project on “Stress-tolerant rice for poor farmers in Africa and South Asia (STRASA).”

The STRASA project, which involves 14 African countries and three South Asian countries, is funded by

Adapting to changeAfrica develops climate change-resilient rice technologies

and drying later on can save water with little or no yield loss in a Sahelian environment, provided weeds are controlled.

AfricaRice is closely involved in a multipartnership project on “Developing rice and sorghum crop adaptation strategies for climate change in vulnerable environments in Africa” (RISOCAS), which is led by the University of Hohenheim. This endeavor is carried out in partnership with the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) for crop modeling. It aims to deliver coping strategies for crops to adapt to changing climatic conditions, along with tools and methods that will enable stakeholders to develop such strategies further, or to apply them to other crops or environments.

As part of a new project to be launched in 2010, AfricaRice will initiate a study on the relationship between rice diseases and climate change. Two of the major rice diseases affecting the region are rice blast and bacterial blight. Both are greatly influenced by climate, especially temperature and humidity. Funded by Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, the project will be carried out in Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania in collaboration with German universities and IRRI.

“We are also planning to get climatologists and geographic information systems (GIS) experts more involved in environmental characterization,” explained Dr. Paul Kiepe, the focal person in charge of climate change–related research at AfricaRice. “More precise predictions of future climate patterns are needed in this research that aims to develop climate-resilient, rice-based technologies.”

AfricaRice continues to find and improve technologies for resource-poor farmers in Africa that are suitable and effective in reducing the negative effects of climate change on rice production and marketing.

the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). It aims to accelerate the development and delivery of improved rice varieties tolerant of five major stresses—drought, submergence, salinity, iron toxicity, and low temperature. Thanks to this project, new stress-tolerant rice varieties are now being evaluated in farmers’ fields using the farmer participatory varietal selection approach.

However, integrated crop and soil fertility management strategies still need to be developed and disseminated to realize the full potential of climate-resilient varieties of rice and also to stabilize yields and reduce environmental degradation arising from climate change in rice ecosystems.

AfricaRice has developed an integrated crop management (ICM) approach for irrigated and rainfed lowlands. Significant gains in yields and profits from ICM have been obtained across the continent.

A study by AfricaRice demonstrates that a paddy irrigation regime that starts with the traditional flooding practice and then changes to alternate wetting

(Left) AfricaRice investigates the climate-resilient traits of the indigenous African rice, Oryza glaberrima. (Right) Most of the rice farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are women. Through participatory approaches, they have become very much involved in AfricaRice’s research on stress-tolerant rice.

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38 Rice Today July-September 2011 39Rice Today July-September 2011

A bronzed look may be attractive for human beings but, for rice plants, it could be fatal. Rice leaves turn bronze when the plants are

affected by iron toxicity—a widespread nutrient disorder in lowland (wetland) rice.

Iron is a trace element that is essential for rice plants for normal growth and development, especially for photosynthesis and maintenance of chlorophyll. However, at high concentrations, it becomes toxic to the plants.

Rice yield loss due to iron toxicity ranges from 10% to 100%, depending on the severity of the toxicity and the tolerance of rice varieties. The loss is greater when toxicity is accompanied by nutrient deficiencies.

Symptoms of bronzingThe stress is significant in areas where reddish soils are predominant. These soils have low fertility but are rich in iron, which, however, is in the ferric (nonsoluble) form and is therefore not accessible to rice plants.

Under prolonged flooded conditions without drainage, the ferric iron converts into ferrous (soluble) iron and becomes available for uptake by rice plants. The soluble iron is then absorbed by the roots of the rice plants and accumulates in the shoots.

Lowlands are often affected by iron toxicity. It is particularly common in acid soils, especially those with a very low pH (less than 5.0), as acidity increases the availability of ferrous iron to the plants.

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where lowland rice ecologies represent about 53% of the total rice area in the region, iron toxicity is a serious problem for smallholder rice farmers.

Beware of bronzingRice faces its own kryptonite—iron toxicity—and AfricaRice is finding a way to help rice survive it

The first signs of iron toxicity in the rice plant are bronze spots, beginning at the tip and spreading toward the base of the rice leaves. Other effects include stunted plant growth, decreased tillering, and high spikelet sterility (leading to reduced yield).

Iron also damages the root structure of the rice plant and reduces its capacity to absorb soil nutrients. For example, when the ferrous iron concentration in the root zone is high, iron plaques are formed, which prevent the plant from taking up other nutrients. Iron toxicity is generally associated with a deficiency of phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.

Increasing toleranceSeveral management and cultural practices can be used to reduce the occurrence of iron toxicity in rice fields. Options include improved water management in rice fields to wash out excess iron or bring oxygen into the soil solution; good cultural practices, such as planting rice on ridges; and improved soil fertility management, such as the application of phosphorus and zinc.

However, most of these methods are impractical or unaffordable for resource-poor rice farmers in SSA. The use of varieties tolerant of iron toxicity offers the most practical and economical solution to the problem.

Research by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) has shown that genetic tolerance of iron toxicity can contribute significantly to rice production in toxic soils; hence, the Center and its partners are now focusing their efforts on improving rice’s ability to withstand or even survive the poison.

They have evaluated rice varieties, selected promising lines, and developed

agronomic practices that can help farmers cope with iron toxicity. Rice varieties with moderate tolerance, such as WITAs 1, 3, 4, and 12 have been released for cultivation in lowlands.

Lines of defenseTraditional varieties that have been grown and selected by farmers for many years tend to be relatively iron-tolerant, such as CG14, which was one of the parents of the first group of NERICA varieties developed by AfricaRice. CG14 is a variety that belongs to the indigenous African rice species, Oryza glaberrima. Researchers have been trying to transfer tolerance from these known donors into high-yielding but iron-sensitive varieties.

According to Dr. Khady Nani Dramé, AfricaRice molecular biologist, the current focus of research at the Center is on the genetics of tolerance of iron toxicity and also on the transfer of genes and molecular markers (QTLs) for iron toxicity tolerance into widely grown local varieties or “mega-varieties” using molecular marker techniques. She is closely involved in the project Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Africa and South Asia (STRASA).

The STRASA project, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), aims to accelerate the development and delivery of improved rice varieties that are tolerant of five major stresses: drought, submergence, salinity, iron toxicity, and low temperature.

As the lack of a standardized, controlled, and reliable suitable screening technique has been a major hindrance to breeding rice tolerant of iron toxicity, Dr. Dramé and her colleagues have

been testing several screening methods, including fields in hot spots, pots on-station, and a hydroponic (soil-free) environment.

Marker-assisted selection (MAS) will be used to introduce the genes that confer tolerance to iron toxicity in rice to popular varieties in the region in partnership with national programs. A few molecular markers (QTLs) associated with tolerance of iron toxicity have already been validated by the research team.

As part of the project, an inventory comprising about 180 tolerant varieties has been made from rice breeding programs of AfricaRice, IRRI, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and national programs.

To evaluate promising iron-tolerant lines, participatory varietal selection (PVS) trials have begun in four West African countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, and Nigeria).

In the first year, farmers examined 80 varieties (including a local check), from which they selected the varieties they preferred. Ten varieties were retained per country for further testing. In the second year of PVS, farmers grew these varieties with their local varieties and made further selections.

Currently, the three best varieties tolerant of iron toxicity per participating country (except for Ghana) have been retained and are expected to be nominated for national release.

The analysis of the PVS trials indicates that the new varieties performed quite well in farmers’ fields compared with the local varieties. “We are happy that, at the end of the PVS trials, we can offer to resource-poor farmers in SSA promising rice varieties that can thrive in iron-rich soils,” said Dr. Dramé.


HigH levels of iron toxicity can completely destroy rice plants, as seen in this field, valley du Kou, Burkina Faso.

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1 Sarwar GM, Khan MH. 2007. Sea Level Rise: A Threat to the Coast of Bangladesh. Internationales Asienforum. Vol. 33 (3–4):375-397. 2 www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/regional/300.htm.

ach year, during the boro season (November-May), salinity is so highthatawhitefilmofsalt envelopspaddyfieldsinthecoastal areas of Bangladesh. For Bangladeshi farmers, this white color on top of their soil is a warning sign that their land is “sick.” Salinity is even dubbed “the white plague” in Australia’s newspapers and magazines, which indicates the seriousness of the problem when it strikes.

(IRRI) plant breeder who is now based in Africa, there are two ways to combat the problem of salinity—either change the plant’s growing environment (make it normal) or change its genetic architecture so that it can grow in such areas.

“Thefirstapproachrequiresmajorengineering processes to improve soil quality,whichareoftenexpensiveforsmall and marginal farmers,” Dr. Singh said. “The second approach, which is breeding crop varieties with built-in salinity tolerance, is the most promising. It needs fewer resources, is economical, and is socially acceptable.”

For IRRI, making plants tolerate salt stress,uptoanextent,isthewaytogo.The Institute has invested its resources for many years to develop varieties that can solve farmers’ problems in saline-prone areas.

Farmers’ defenseIt has been more than a decade now since the discovery of Saltol—a gene that confers salinity tolerance (see Less salt, please in Rice Today, Vol. 6, No. 2). Glenn Gregorio, an IRRI plant breeder, credited most of salinity tolerance to the development of IR66946-3R-178-1-1, popularly known as FL478. The Saltol gene had been incorporated into this variety,andhadshownsignificanttolerance of salinity.

Since then, through molecular-assisted breeding, the IRRI multidisciplinary team on salinity tolerance composed of physiologist

Bangladesh combats the white plague

Story by Lanie C. ReyesPhotos by Isagani Serrano

Salt may be a blessing to good cooking, but, in rice cultivation, it is a deadly sin

In Bangladesh, salinity affects around 1 million hectares. Furthermore, someclimateexpertssaythatsea-levelrise will cause the country’s landscape to become “sicker.”

No other country in South Asia is more vulnerable to sea-level rise than densely populated Bangladesh.1 With higher sea level, more areas would be affected by cyclonic surges; inland freshwaterlakes,ponds,andaquiferscould also be affected by saline-water

and brackish-water intrusion according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.2

Md. Lutfor Rahman, a 62-year-old farmer in Satkhira, is not an alien to salinity. “Everything is lost to salinity,” Mr. Rahman said with a sigh. He was referring to the 10,000 taka (US$135) and the labor he had invested in his 0.2 hectare of land. Now, his family is left with nothing but a cow. “These rice stalks will be used as her feed,” said Mr. Rahman.

Hisnextstepistofindajobasalaborer and earn a daily wage of 150 to 200 taka ($2–3). “But, only God knows how soon that will be,” he added.

the salty challengeSalt as a seasoning goes well with rice—especially in developing countries, where the poor use salt as a dish to accompany their boiled rice. But, in rice cultivation, salt has a negative effect. Once salt gets to the roots, it becomes detrimental to the whole plant.

According to Dr. R.K. Singh, International Rice Research Institute

Abdelbagi Ismail, molecular biologist Mike Thomson, Dr. R.K. Singh, and Dr. Gregorio as well as country partners in Asia and Africa were able to introgress Saltol into popular rice varieties.

One of these varieties is BRRI dhan47, which was released in Bangladesh in 2007. It is an IRRI-bred variety, labeled as IR63307-4B-4-3, which was evaluated and released by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) in collaboration with the IRRI team for salinity tolerance now headed by Dr. Gregorio.

“The development of BRRI dhan47 is one of the best results of a strong collaboration between IRRI and BRRI,” said Dr. Md. Abdul Mannan, BRRI director general. “The transfer of materials from IRRI that can perform in stress conditions and the Institute’s assistance in our manpower development through both short- and long-term training haveplayedakeyroleinthisproject.”

“Now, BRRI dhan47 is creating enthusiasm among Bangladeshi farmers in coastal areas because it is helping them alleviate their poverty and secure their food for the whole year,” said Dr. Md. RafiqulIslam,principalplantbreederonsalinity tolerance at BRRI.

Just a bund away from Mr. Rahman’s farm,a0.4-hectarericefieldisteemingwith ripening rice grains. It is owned by SirajulIslam,50.JustlikeMr.Rahman,heexperimentedbyplantingdifferentkinds of varieties each season, hoping that one could survive the land’s salinity.

eBRRI dhan47 helps farmers like Md. Lutfor Rahman to overcome salinity in Bangladesh.

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The only difference between them is that Mr. Islam tried BRRI dhan47.

“With the way my rice is growing now,Iamexpectingagoodharvest,”Mr.Islam said.

“BRRI dhan47 is better,” Mr. Rahman readily agreed.

Another farmer in Satkhira, Abu Abdullah, 35, was also enthusiastic. He had good reasons. Three years ago, he could not harvest anything because his fieldshadbecometoo“salty”forhisregular variety. During those lean years, he borrowed money even at a very high interest rate of 2% per week.

He said that he was more than happy to see that rice could once again grow on his“salty”land.And,heisexpectingtoharvest 4 to 5 tons at the end of the boro season.

Now, Mr. Abdullah hopes to start repaying his loans. “I may not be able to write off all my debts immediately, but, at least, I can program my payments in 2 years,” he said.

Just like most farmers in the world, Bangladeshi farmers are mostly subsistence farmers. They cultivate rice on a piece of land for their food.

“When salinity strikes, they can no longer grow food and they can’t afford tobuyfood,”explainedDr.Islam.“Forthese people, there is no option. For them, the difference of having salinity-tolerant varieties is between nothing and something.”

And, this “difference” could eventually have an impact nationwide.

“Our food security depends entirely on rice production,” said Dr. Md. Khairul Bashar, BRRI director for research. “Even if salinity-tolerant varieties cover only half a million hectares that are affected by salinity, the effect will be tremendous,” he added.

Dr. Gregorio is also happy to see this positive result because to make rice withstand salinity is the heart of his team’sjobatIRRI.“Seeingourworkinthefieldgivesusthisgreatfeelingoffulfillment,”heshared.

“humble” riceAside from its yield, farmers prefer BRRI dhan47becauseofitserectflagleaves.Dr. Gregorio described it as a “humble” variety. At a distance, the grains are not noticeable at once because of the crop’s green,erectflagleavesontopoftherice

fields.But,hiddenjustbelowthegreenflagleavesarestoopingpaniclesheavywithroundfatgrains―makingthegrainsless conspicuous to birds.

“BRRI dhan47 is not a lodging type,” said Dr. Islam. “It remains erect when some varieties bend over from the force of a strong wind.

“The farmers also like its long stalks of 100–110 centimeters, which stay green even at maturity, because they use them as feed for their cattle and roof thatches for their homes,” he added.

to the rescueBRRI dhan47 also made its mark in helping the lives of Bangladeshi farmers when cyclone Aila decimated the rice fieldsinthesouthernpartofthecountryin 2009. Aila brought with her sea water that encroached on ponds and rivers. “Somefieldsremainedfloodedbyseawater for some time, thus increasing the salinity in the soil,” Dr. Islam said.

The variety was then considered as a solution by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to help Bangladeshi farmers recover from the disaster. FAO, through the Department of AgriculturalExtension,distributed62.5tons of BRRI dhan47 seed to 15,000 farm households affected by the cyclone.

Afterward, an FAO-commissioned study assessed the performance of BRRI dhan47 in the Aila-affected southern region.3 The results showed that BRRI dhan47 did perform well. Being able to tolerate salinity up to 12 deci-Siemens

per meter, the variety was able to give farmers a good harvest that ranged from 4.0 to 7.2 tons per hectare, with an average of 5.5 tons. It is found to be profitable,withanaveragenetreturnof 35,693 taka ($483) per hectare and a meanbenefit-costratioof1.73.4

Version 2.0Without a doubt, BRRI dhan47 has made a positive impression on farmers. But, “BRRI dhan47 is not a perfect variety,” stated Dr. Gregorio. “Just like anelectronicgadget,itisjustthe‘firstmodel.’Thenextvarietywillbeevenbetter.”

Achieving a better model,however,requiresknowledge of what farmers like or how farmers definea“better”variety.This is why IRRI plant breeders, along with their national partners, involve farmers in a process called participatory varietal selection (PVS).

Through PVS, plant breeders were able to learn that, aside from salinity tolerance, farmers in Satkhira prefer the long, slender type of rice grains, while farmers in Sonagazi like short, bold ones. Farmers also favor the nonshattering type of variety because they carry newly harvested panicles from theirfieldstobethreshedattheirhomes.

Althoughfarmersaresatisfiedwiththe amount of rice that BRRI dhan47 yields, it goes without saying that farmers desire a better-yielding salinity-tolerant variety in the future.

good seedSaltol contributes about 45% of the salinity tolerance in rice. But, even with thisquantifiablesuccess,Dr.Gregorioandhis team continue to roll up their sleeves in order to pinpoint the location of the gene on the chromosome. Their aim is to improve the performance of salinity-tolerant varieties and to minimize trial and error in breeding. So, they have embarked onfine-mappingandmarker-assistedbackcrossing for the Saltol gene.

Using new sources of germplasm inmappingmorequantitativetraitloci (QTLs) for salinity tolerance, they discoveredmajorQTLsonchromosomes1, 7, 8, and 10. And, they were able to identify three putative candidate genes, SKC1, SalT, and pectinesterase.

“We are presently working toward identifying and combining more genes related to salinity for more stable tolerance,” Dr. Gregorio said.

For Dr. Gregorio, developing these varieties for farmers is important. “Everything starts with a good seed,” he said. “One may have good management

practices, but, if the seed is not tolerant of a stress like salinity, it will fail. A good seed, however, even with fewer good management practices, can yield something somehow.”

Moreover, good seeds enable farmerstobemoreconfidentininvestingin their crops—applying some inputs such as fertilizers.

a dynamic businessBRRI dhan47 has attracted more players in the business of development. ExtensionworkersfromtheDepartmentofAgriculturalExtensioninBangladeshplayed an important role in creating awareness about BRRI dhan47. Nongovernment organizations were also involvedinextensionworkandhelpedinthe distribution of seeds.

Even the private sector has played a critical role in the wider and more sustainable adoption of this technology.

3 Islam SMF. 2010. Impact Assessment Report of TCP/BGD/3204(E): A Focus on Performance Assessment of BRRI dhan47 in the South. Dhaka. FAO. 42 p.

How? When private companies produce and sell salinity-tolerant seeds, they help ensure that seeds that get to the farmersare“pureandcertified”andofhighquality.Otherwise,iflow-qualityseeds reach farmers, the credibility of the technology will naturally suffer.

Too much is at stake when it comes to the delivery of a technology that combats climate-related problems such as salinity. Once salinity reaches the soil andwaterinfarmers’ricefields,itcanliterallyobliteratericeproductioninjusta few days.

Because salinity is a real threat to farmers’ food security, IRRI,throughitsprojects,such as the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments (CURE), now funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Africa and South Asia (STRASA), which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, facilitates and coordinates the efforts of these different stakeholders in order to distribute seeds of stress-tolerant rice

varieties, including BRRI dhan47, to more farmersthequickestwaypossible.

“As of now, more than 500 tons of BRRI dhan47 seeds have been produced and distributed through STRASA partners in south and southwest Bangladesh over the last 2 years,” said Dr. Umesh Singh, senior scientist and STRASA regional coordinator for South Asia.“Approximately450tonsofseedhave been produced during the 2010-11 boro season, which will be available to farmersinthenextcropseason.”

The outlook for the future through the lens of climate change seems bleak, and maybe even scary for rice production in coastal areas. More areas may be affected by salinity. But, with climate-change-ready rice varieties such as BRRI dhan47, thefutureisbrighter.Asthe“firstmodel”that can combat salinity, BRRI dhan47 is a good start in securing this staple food in saline-prone areas of Bangladesh.

4 Comparisonofthepresentvalueofaninvestmentdecisionorprojectwithitsinitialcost.Aratioofgreaterthan1indicatesthattheprojectisaviableone.

A fARMeR signs up for the participatory varietal selection activity in Pirojpur District, Bangladesh.

(Left to right) DR. MD. Rafiqul Islam, plant breeder; Dr. Md. Khairul Bashar, director for research; Dr. Md. Abdul Mannan, director general of BRRI; and Dr. Glenn Gregorio, IRRI plant breeder, discuss the traits of BRRI dhan47 at BRRI research station in Gazipur District, Bangladesh.

SALInIty-toLeRAnt BRRI dhan47 is not a lodging type, has erect flag leaves, which hide its grains from the birds, and long, green stalks that can be used as roof thatches and feed for the cattle. It can yield 4.0 to 7.2 tons per hectare.

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Since the dawn of agriculture, drought has been the bane of

farmers, especially those who grow rice, a crop that has special water requirements. Drought stress severely limits rice productivity in the rainfed ecosystem in which farmers often experience total crop failure because of a lack of water at one critical plant growth stage or another, according to Arvind Kumar, a plant breeder at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Most rainfed areas receive a reasonable amount of rainfall during the growing season. “However,” says Dr. Kumar, “its erratic distribution and shortage, particularly at flowering and again at grain-filling, can seriously curtail productivity.” He adds that Asia alone has around 23 million hectares (20% of the total rice area) that are prone to drought under these conditions and where climate change may make matters, particularly water scarcity, only worse.

Without assured irrigation, farmers are completely dependent on rainfall to water their crops. The possibility of drought has made rice farming a risky endeavor. Because of the risk, farmers do not invest enough in inputs to increase rice production.

To help farmers cope with water

by Lanie C. Reyes

scarcity, IRRI has bred several new lines that are as high-yielding as any normal varieties with sufficient water. They have a 0.8 to 1 ton per hectare yield advantage whenever drought occurs. Two of these drought-tolerant breeding lines have been recommended for official release: IR74371-70-1-1 in India and its sister line IR74371-54-1-1 in the Philippines.

“IRRI has intensified efforts to develop drought-tolerant and aerobic cultivars to cope with this looming water shortage,” says David Mackill, leader for IRRI’s rainfed program. “Drought has been a complex trait to improve, and I am

very happy to see the recent advances and progress in developing drought-tolerant lines at IRRI.”

Most farmers in rainfed/drought-prone areas grow varieties bred for irrigated conditions such as IR36, IR64, Poornima, MTU1010, Lalat, Swarna, and Sambha Mahsuri, among others. Unfortunately, these varieties are highly susceptible to drought. Whenever a severe drought occurs, these irrigated varieties suffer high losses and farmers are lucky to harvest even half a ton per hectare from them. “With the cultivation of the newly bred drought-tolerant lines, in normal-rainfall years, farmers

will have the same high yield of irrigated varieties, and in drought years they can harvest 1.5 to 2 tons from 1 hectare,” says Dr. Kumar.

IRRI works with the national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES) for the evaluation of newly developed breeding lines. Before a breeding line is identified for release, it undergoes testing in the national system and is recommended for release after its superior performance in the national trials. The newly developed drought-tolerant lines IR74371-70-1-1 and IR74371-54-1-1 outperformed the current varieties in national trials in India

New drought-tolerant lines developed at IRRI give hope to farmers in drought-prone

areas in eastern India and the Philippines

IRRI

12 Rice Today July-September 2009

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and the Philippines and have been recommended for release for farmers’ cultivation. The two breeding lines also performed well under aerobic and alternate wetting and drying (AWD) situations (see The Big Squeeze, pages 21-31 of Rice Today Vol. 7, No. 2 and Every drop counts, pages 16-18).

IRRI’s System for Temperate and Tropical Aerobic Rice project under the Challenge Program for Water and Food has been building a network on participatory varietal selection (PVS) testing and evaluation since 2004. The project aims to develop prototype aerobic rice production systems for water-scarce environments.

According to Ruben Lampayan, water management scientist at IRRI, a major component of the project was to identify rice varieties with high yield potential under aerobic conditions from among IRRI’s advanced lines through PVS. They tapped their project partners to collaborate in implementing PVS with farmers.

in the PhilippinesDr. Lampayan has found in Junel B. Soriano, director for research, extension, training, and production at Bulacan Agricultural State College (BASC), the heart and passion to reach out to more partners and stakeholders with aerobic rice and other water-saving technologies. Hence, in the Philippines, IR74371-54-1-1 has been tested at BASC since 2004 and in farmers’ fields in Bulacan, La Union, Bataan, and Palawan since 2006.

Dr. Soriano recalls a time during the dry season of 2004 when a trial was conducted in a small testing plot at BASC

in coordination with IRRI. They invited farmers, technicians, and researchers during the PVS.

During that PVS, one impressed farmer eagerly asked, “Can I reproduce that line on my farm?” That farmer was Nemencio Concepcion, 49, of San Ildefonso, Bulacan. He became interested in the drought-tolerant variety because it seemed tailor-made for his drought-prone upland area.

On his own initiative, he reproduced the line and was happy with the results. His neighboring farmers were eager to try it on their farms. Eventually, the line became popular among farmers, and is known among them as “5411” (instead of IR74371-54-1-1).

According to Dr. Soriano, 5411 matures 2 weeks ahead of their previously used variety, which takes

120 days to mature. The new line yields an average of 4.5 tons per hectare. Also, it is very resistant to pests and diseases and, so far, farmers have not experienced tungro or any other disease.

Mr. Concepcion proudly announces that the rice he planted in February was harvested in May. “Because of its shorter duration, it

allows me to harvest not just two but three times a year,” he says. “And, as this variety is tolerant of drought, I can plant the crop even during the dry season without any fear of crop loss.”

Since his farm is on higher ground, he needs to pump in water. With AWD technology, he is thankful that he does not need to flood his paddies. He pumps water only a few times a month and only when necessary. “I save much on water and on gasoline for the pump, even during the dry season,” Mr. Concepcion says.

His recent crop experienced more than 2 weeks of drought. So, he pumped water to his upland rice area. However, there was one rice area where he was not able to pump water because of insufficient available water. “I sacrificed that area and accepted its fate because the rice plants wilted already,” he

stated. But, when rain came, he was surprised to see that his plants recovered from wilting.

Although the rice that recovered from drought is expected to be harvested about 2 weeks later than the rest of the 5411, it is still within an acceptable duration. Above all, he is just glad to be able to harvest rice despite the drought. (For drought-susceptible varieties, more than 2 weeks of drought in upland fields may yield almost nothing for farmers.)

Mr. Concepcion (right)— a farmer in Bulacan, explains to Dr. Soriano of BASC, that this part of his rice farm wilted because of drought. But, when rain came, it fully recovered.

Dozens of promising drought-tolerant cultivars are being tested on the IRRI farm in the Philippines. Here, Dr. Kumar shows drought-tolerant rice on his right compared with a susceptible variety on his immediate left.

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Mr. Concepcion’s experience is consistent with what Dr. Kumar says about the new drought-tolerant lines: “They withstand drought at any stage of the crop cycle. Moreover, they withstand drought even at the reproductive stage, when the plant suffers more loss due to drought.”

“Since that line can be broadcast-seeded instead of transplanted, I saved a lot on labor costs,” relates Mr. Concepcion. “I don’t need to hire laborers to plant seedlings in the nursery, pull them from the seedbed, tie them together, and transplant them.”

Every harvest, Mr. Concepcion earns around US$638 to $850 per hectare from his rice field (of 4 ha) planted with 5411. Plus, he can harvest three times a year.

Mr. Concepcion is indeed one happy and satisfied farmer. His influence on other farmers to adopt 5411 reaches Nueva Ecija and Pampanga provinces. Even if rice fields in these areas are irrigated, there is no problem because 5411 still performs well in wet areas.

According to Dr. Soriano, Mr. Concepcion is so effective in influencing other farmers to adopt 5411 and increase the productivity of their lands that he considers Mr. Concepcion not just a farmer cooperator but a partner in BASC’s extension efforts.

Mr. Concepcion was one of the first 13 farmer cooperators in 2004. They increased to 50 in 2005, to 70 in 2006, and BASC now has more than 100 farmer cooperators. According to Dr. Soriano, the success of adoption can be attributed to farmer-to-farmer influence and support from the local government.

Dr. Soriano is more than encouraged in sharing the benefits of 5411 along with its management technologies, the aerobic system, and the AWD system in the Philippines, because he believes that more farmers can benefit from all this, particularly those in rainfed areas.

He plans to expand extension activities at BASC by involving other state universities and colleges all over the country. He has

started to coordinate with other state universities such as Bataan Polytechnic State University, Palawan State University, and Mindanao Foundation College, among others.

in eastern indiaSimilarly, in eastern India, IRRI introduced a drought-tolerant breeding line, IR74371-70-1-1, which has also consistently performed well both at research centers and in farmers’ fields. Since eastern India is one of the largest drought-affected areas, a variety that can cope with a dry spell is a welcome change in rice farming.

IR74371-70-1-1 was initially tested under an India-IRRI collaborative project, the Drought Breeding Network (DBN), whose partners are the Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station (CRURRS) in Hazaribag; Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Raipur; Birsa Agricultural Univ., Ranchi; Narendra Dev University of Agriculture and Technology, Faizabad; Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore; University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore; and Barwale Foundation, Hyderabad, India. Courtesy of the DBN, researchers have identified this entry as promising for the drought-prone ecosystem.

Since this line is a product of a joint endeavor, the team from CRURRS suggested the name Sahbhagi dhan, which means, in Hindi, rice developed through collaboration. Recently, the Variety Identification Committee (VIC) recommended it for release to the Central Subcommittee on Crop Standards, Notification, and Release of Varieties.

Nimai P. Mandal, a plant breeder at CRURRS, tested Sahbhagi dhan during the wet season of 2004. It

has consistently performed well, better than any other entries of that duration, since then. “In 2007, we started testing this variety in farmers’ fields in two villages near Hazaribag,” he says.

Kailash Yadav, 34, and Naresh Paswan, 38, of Mahesha, Hazaribag, Jharkhand, are two farmers who had the opportunity to observe a demonstration using Sahbhagi dhan conducted by CRURRS and they tried it on their respective farms. As a result, they were delighted to harvest 4.5 tons of rice per hectare in a good monsoon year. Before

using the drought-tolerant variety, they harvested only 3 to 3.7 tons per hectare. They are also pleased with its traits such as the ability to tolerate a month-long drought, early maturity, and good eating quality.

Farmers in rainfed areas such as Mr. Yadav and Mr. Paswan largely depend on rain for a good harvest. But, good years may be few and as unpredictable as the onset of drought. If the rains are poor, this can spell catastrophe for all. Mr. Yadav still remembers the 2006 drought that affected their village. Without any income from farming, he somehow managed some earnings from his small grocery store. But, many villagers migrated to town to work as daily laborers. One was Mr. Paswan.

An agricultural field assistant of the Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station interviews farmers who have tested Sahbhagi dhan on their farms.

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Though he describes the drought as “not so severe,” it still affected the people of his village. Finances were so difficult then that he needed to borrow money from another farmer for his transportation.

Sahbhagi dhan gave the two farmers opportunity and hope in rice farming. “I have confidence that this variety will be a blessing for farmers in drought-stress situations,” says Mr. Paswan. “And, we can manage the problem of drought by growing this variety,” adds Mr. Yadav. Because both are impressed by the qualities of Sahbhagi dhan,

they are going to recommend it and share it with their neighbors as soon as they have sufficient seed.

“Drought-tolerant lines have received high farmers’ preference scores in both normal and drought trials and farmers look convinced of adopting such superior varieties,” says Dr. Stephan Haefele, soil scientist and agronomist and responsible for testing the lines in farmers’ fields under PVS in India.

More farmers besides Mr. Paswan and Mr. Yadav will benefit from Sahbhagi dhan. According to Dr. Mandal, the rainfed upland area in India occupies about 6 million hectares. But the target area for Sahbhagi dhan could be more because it is also suitable for drought-prone shallow lowlands.

U.S. Singh, the regional coordinator for South Asia of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-supported project on “Stress-tolerant rice for poor farmers in Africa and South Asia” and responsible for seed production and dissemination of Sahbhagi dhan, plans to have large-scale seed multiplication of this line in 2009 and produce 100 tons of seed to distribute to as many farmers as possible by the next wet season in India.

National Food Security Mission of India, National Seed Corporation, various public- and private-sector

seed corporations and companies, research organizations, and NGOs are interested in, reproducing and disseminating Sahbhagi dhan seeds. “Our purpose is to take this variety to the maximum number of farmers in the shortest possible time,” says Dr. Singh.

As the scientist now responsible for developing drought-tolerant varieties, Dr. Kumar says that he is very lucky to witness the success of this teamwork.

When asked whether this is his greatest accomplishment as a scientist, he says, “This is IRRI’s achievement. Other scientists before me have been working for about 40 years to achieve this.” Dr. Brigitte Courtois attempted the crosses, which has led to the development of these two lines. And it was Dr. Gary Atlin, who introduced the concept, initiated and conducted experiments on direct selection for grain yield under drought stress. He combined high yield potential under irrigated situation with good yield under drought.

Forty years? What turning point along the way led to high-yielding drought-tolerant rice? IRRI scientists started working in a different way: working directly on improving

grain yield in rice under drought.Dr. Rachid Serraj, a drought

physiologist involved in dissecting the mechanisms of drought tolerance and its genetic variation in rice, says that combining high yield potential and drought tolerance through direct selection for grain yield is one of the right approaches for developing drought-tolerant lines, in addition to marker-assisted selection and GM (gene modification) approaches (see Overcoming the toughest stress in rice: drought on page 30).

In the years before that, scientists had been working on improving the traits thought to be related to drought tolerance such as leaf rolling, rooting depth, and other traits. They believed that yield under drought could be increased by improving these secondary traits.

In 2004, IRRI breeders started to work on direct selection for grain yield under drought stress. At first, they were not sure that this would show results. But, subsequent experiments confirmed that this approach worked.

For a plant breeder like Dr. Kumar, “developing drought-tolerant cultivars is the most efficient way to stabilize rice production in drought-prone areas.” Higher yield of drought-tolerant lines in drought years should encourage farmers to apply more inputs such as fertilizer that further raise the productivity of the rainfed drought-prone system. Because of drought-tolerant lines, farmers will indeed lower their risks of investing their money and time in drought-prone areas.

Sahbhagi dhan and 5411 and other similar drought-tolerant lines that may be developed in the future will benefit and provide confidence to rice farmers not just in India and the Philippines but also in other drought-prone areas in Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world. In fact, a few other promising drought tolerant lines and aerobic cultivars are now being tested in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Philippines under projects supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Generation Challenge Program, and Asian Development Bank.

The soon-to-be-released drought-tolerant Sahbhagi dhan in eastern India thrives under drought conditions.

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26 Rice Today January-March 2010 27Rice Today January-March 2010

In sub-Saharan Africa, rice is one of the most significant crops—as both a food and cash crop. This is evident from the recent civil unrest

that broke out in many African countries because of rice shortages. As the African population is expected to hit one billion soon, the region is worried that its rice production will fall short of the growing demand. Africa’s terrain poses many challenges to farmers, thereby limiting the continent’s full potential to grow rice and attain food self-sufficiency.

The most striking geological feature in Africa is undoubtedly the East African rift system. The main section of the valley starts from the Red Sea, crosses through Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi, and plunges into the lower Zambezi River valley in Mozambique. The rift has formed Africa’s mountainous regions, including Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, which soars 5,796 meters above sea level. It is permanently capped with snow even though it is near the equator. This unique topography gives sub-Saharan Africa the most diverse and complex agroecological zones for rice production of any region in the world.

If cold-tolerant varieties of rice can be improved for farmers to maximize planting and boost rice production in the highlands of East Africa and the cold-prone areas of the Sahel region, Africa will be well on its way toward alleviating poverty and ensuring food security for its many people.

Low temperature retards the rice plant’s growth. This is a common problem among farmers who sow rice during cool seasons, and among those who grow rice at high altitudes and in areas that have a cold irrigation-water supply. Damage depends on the prevalent air or water temperature, cropping pattern, growth stages of the crop, and variety. Damage can be observed at any growth stage, and it often leads to crop failure. Cold conditions inhibit the seed’s metabolic process; hence, seed germination fails. Other outcomes are slow seedling growth, stunting, discoloration, panicle degeneration, sterility, and irregular maturity. Given such wide-ranging effects of low temperature on rice and the serious impact on productivity, several African rice-growing countries have invested their resources in developing cold-tolerant rice varieties. Among these

countries are Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Rwanda, Mali, and Senegal.

EthiopiaAlthough rice production was just recently introduced in this country, paddy area has already surpassed 150,000 hectares—and this has been achieved in mid- and low-altitude areas only. The vast highland plateaus located at about 2,000 meters above sea level, in spite of their high potential for rice production, could not be used because of the unavailability of cold-tolerant varieties. A few varieties are grown in the mid-highlands (as high as 1,800 meters) such as X-jigna and WAB 189. Recently, through support from the Sasakawa Africa Association, germplasm collections from the International Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER) at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and other sources were introduced to adapt or develop cold-tolerant varieties suitable for higher altitudes.

MadagascarRice is the staple food in the densely populated high plateau of Madagascar. Farmers traditionally grow irrigated

rice or rainfed lowland rice in inland valleys and on hillsides. Magnificent rice terraces can be seen at 1,900 meters. Mean temperatures at 1,500 meters vary from 17 °C in October, the rice-sowing period, to 20 °C during the reproductive stage. Minimum temperatures can fall below 10 °C during early vegetative stage and are below 14 °C during reproductive stage and grain filling. Low-temperature damage is worse with a temperature drop during the seedling or reproductive stage.

Madagascar’s cold-tolerant rice breeding program started with a vast collection of irrigated rice germplasm taken from local and international sources. Those belonging to the Latsika family had the best performance in sterility rate, grain yield, and tolerance of sheath blight. The Latsika family belongs to the temperate japonica group. Varieties of this family are traditionally cultivated in lowland ecosystems with altitudes above 1,800 meters. Although the released varieties have shown tolerance of cold, the extended growth period, from October to April/May (because of the cold temperature), made double cropping difficult. Hence, increasing productivity has been rendered impossible.

TanzaniaTanzania is the second-largest rice producer in East Africa. Quite accustomed to eating rice, Tanzanians have developed a unique taste for this staple cereal. Most prefer aromatic rice that becomes long and fluffy when cooked. Varieties that have these qualities often have low yield and thus command higher prices among producers. One possible way to increase the productivity of these preferred varieties is through double cropping. However, this could not be realized in the southern highlands region because farmers use

the cold water from the mountains for irrigation during the cool season.

RwandaRwanda has extensive irrigation schemes for rice cultivation in the highlands. Rice production can be carried out in areas such as Ruhengeri, which is at about 2,000 meters. During the cold season, the temperature in this area can go as low as 10 °C. A few cold-tolerant japonica varieties have been grown in the country since the 1970s, such as Zong eng, Yunyine, and Yun keng. However, since consumers prefer long-grain indica rice, farmers grow japonica types only during the cold season for their own consumption. Thus, breeding cold-tolerant indica rice is the major objective in the country.

The Sahel region (Mali and Senegal)Rice consumption is very high in West Africa. For instance, Mali and Senegal consume 60 and 70 kilograms per capita per annum, respectively. Total crop failure because of low temperatures in the Sahel region has been a major problem. Planting rice seeds between mid-September and mid-November was associated with near-total spikelet sterility in Sahel countries. Higher variation in the crop cycle was observed in the coastal west and extreme north of the Sahel due to cold stress. Short-duration varieties were introduced earlier; however, they were mostly japonica types (I Kong Pao from Taiwan, Tatsumi Mochi from Japan, and AIWU and China-998 from China). None of these varieties are now widely grown because consumers prefer the slender indica types. Finding varieties that can thrive during the cold dry season has therefore become crucial in order to increase rice productivity in the Sahel region.

Currently, IRRI and the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) have joined efforts

Weathering the cold Africa develops rice that can thrive in the region’s cooler zones

by Negussie Zenna, Ashura Luzi-Kihupi, Baboucarr Manneh, Rabeson Raymond, Elie Rene Gasore, and Karim Traore

to develop improved cold-tolerant rice varieties under the Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Africa and South Asia (STRASA)-Cold project. This collaboration involves six countries in Africa: Mali and Senegal in the west and Madagascar, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Ethiopia in the east. On-site activities are carried out in AfricaRice substations—in Senegal for West Africa and in Tanzania for East Africa.

Moreover, under the STRASA-Cold project, varieties adapted to low-temperature conditions are assembled from INGER, along with prebreeding materials from the International Cold-Tolerant Nursery and Temperate Rice Research Consortium. The germplasm is evaluated under actual field conditions, in collaboration with national agricultural research and extension systems. The field screening activity has a participatory varietal selection component, in which farmers get involved in the varietal selection process; and a seed production component, in which farmers are given access to quality seed. Plant breeders use conventional and molecular breeding approaches to transfer the cold-tolerance trait to local mega-varieties.

Over the past years, different researchers have identified several genetic markers linked with genes that possess cold-tolerance traits. Hence, marker-assisted breeding has become an important component of the breeding program. This approach can facilitate the rapid generation of improved cold-tolerant varieties with acceptable grain quality for Africa. These varieties, aside from increasing productivity and ensuring food security, would also help alleviate poverty in the region, as they meet the needs of resource-poor farmers.

Dr. Zenna is a postdoctoral fellow and Dr. Kihupi is a regional liaison scientist at AfricaRice, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Dr. Manneh is a molecular biologist and coordinator of the Abiotic Stresses Project and Dr. Traore is a rice breeder at AfricaRice, Saint Louis, Senegal. Dr. Raymond is a scientist and head of the rice program at the National Centre for Applied Research on Rural Development (FOFIFA), Madagascar. Mr. Gasore is the director of the Rice Research Programme at ISAR (Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda).

Dr. Negussie Zenna, postdoctoral fellow, and Mr. Martin Ndomondo, research technician, of Africarice develop cold-tolerant breeding lines in Morogoro, Tanzania.

Africarice scientists and national partners visit a cold-tolerant rice line in Fanaye, saint Louis, senegal.

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TANZANiAN FArMers bend their backs transplanting rice beneath snow-capped Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak on the African continent.

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26 Rice Today April-June 2009

Scientists had long known of an Indian rice variety, unromantically dubbed FR13A, that could handle a week or

more of complete submergence and recover sufficiently to offer a reasonable harvest. Rice, although often grown in standing water, will drown like any other plant if hit with severe flooding.

Despite its remarkable properties, FR13A (FR stands for “flood resistant”), as a low-yielding traditional variety grown across limited areas in the Indian state of Orissa, was never expected to make a big impact on a wide scale. Nevertheless, rice breeders—including David Mackill, a young Californian plant breeder working at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the 1980s—saw the potential to breed FR13A’s sought-after trait

New versions of popular varieties of rice, which can withstand 2 weeks of complete submergence,

are set to make a big impact in South Asia

into some of the modern high-yielding rice varieties planted over vast flood-prone areas across Asia.

His reasoning, which emerged from discussions with IRRI deepwater rice breeder Derk HilleRisLambers, was that a flood-tolerant version of a popular modern variety could have an enormous impact. In Bangladesh and India, for example, farmers suffer annual crop losses because of flooding of up to 4 million tons of rice—enough to feed 30 million people. To the farm families and workers, and to the poor consumers who rely on rice for the bulk of their food, flooding can be truly disastrous.

So, the IRRI breeders—people who spend their careers mixing the genes of plants to develop new varieties that can handle harsh climates, or resist diseases and pests,

Scuba riceby Adam Barclay


Stemming the tide in flood-prone South Asia

IRRI plant breeder Dave Mackill (right) swaps notes at BRRI’s Rangpur station with UC Davis professor pam Ronald.

Even after 17 days of submergence in IRRI research plots, Sub1 rice lines show their “waterproof” trait as they are still standing to the left, right, and further behind IRRI plant physiologist abdel Ismail.Ge

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27Rice Today April-June 2009

or cope with problem soils—tried. And they succeeded. Sort of. They created higher-yielding rice plants that could handle major floods, but they never even got close to releasing them to farmers. During the breeding process, which transferred to the modern varieties whichever genes were giving FR13A its flood tolerance, too many unwanted genes moved across as well. The result was poor-tasting, flood-tolerant rice that yielded no more than existing varieties. And so the idea moved to the back burner.

In 1991, Dr. Mackill left IRRI for the University of California (UC) at Davis. With FR13A still on his mind, he and his graduate student Kenong Xu took up the challenge of identifying the genes responsible for FR13A’s scuba abilities. They eventually pinpointed the precise stretch of DNA that made the variety so interesting, and named the assumed gene SUB1.

The group subsequently teamed up with another UC Davis researcher, Pamela Ronald, an expert in isolating genes that give plants particular traits. Working in Dr. Ronald’s lab, Dr. Xu and his wife, Xia, discovered a single gene, which they named SUB1A, and demonstrated that this alone was responsible for most of the flood tolerance.

Dr. Mackill, who by now had returned to IRRI, realized that the FR13A game was back on. By that time, 25 years after the first breeding attempts, agricultural science had come a long way. A new “precision-breeding” method, known as marker-assisted selection (MAS; see On your mark, get set, select on pages 28-29 of Rice Today Vol. 3, No. 3; also see From genes to farmers’ fields on pages 28-31 of Rice Today Vol. 5, No. 4), allowed breeders to do much of their work in the lab. The new method shortened the breeding process and vastly improved the precision with which specific traits could be moved from one variety into another. He and his team were able to transfer

SUB1A into widely grown modern rice varieties without affecting other characteristics—such as high yield, good grain quality, and pest and disease resistance—that made the varieties popular in the first place.

By 2006, the first Sub1 varieties were ready for testing at IRRI. The researchers set up plots of what they hoped would be flood-tolerant versions of several varieties—IR64, Swarna, and Samba Mahsuri—next to plots of their non-Sub1 counterparts. Once the plants had established themselves, the plots were flooded, completely submerging the rice for 15 days. Next, the water was drained to reveal muddy plots of limp, flattened, deathly looking plants.

Then, a remarkable thing happened. Within 2 weeks of the flood, almost all of the Sub1 plants recovered. They came back to life as if coached by Lazarus1 himself. A few scattered clumps of the original versions made a comeback, but there was no comparison. At harvest, the Sub1 rice yielded more than twice as much as its neighbor (to view a dramatic time-lapse video of the experiment, visit http://snipurl.com/ebql8).

Around the same time, following Dr. Ronald’s group’s success in proving that SUB1A was indeed the right gene, Julia Bailey-Serres, a geneticist from UC Riverside who also worked on the gene’s identification, began investigating exactly how SUB1A confers flood tolerance. It turns out that the secret is all about saving energy.

With colleague Takeshi Fukao, Dr. Bailey-Serres has determined that, when submerged, rice without SUB1A responds by increasing the pace of its elongation in an attempt to escape the submergence. Deepwater rice varieties are able to do this rapidly enough to succeed. In modern high-yielding varieties, however, the elongation is insufficient. If the flood lasts for more than a few days, the normal varieties expend so much energy trying—unsuccessfully—to escape that they’re unable to recover.

Submergence of FR13A or any of the new Sub1 varieties, on the other hand, activates the SUB1A gene, which suppresses this elongation strategy, effectively shunting the rice plant into a dormant state until the floodwaters recede. Thus, the plants conserve their energy for a postflood recovery.

“Understanding things from this very basic perspective should allow us to achieve an even better plant more rapidly,” says Dr. Bailey-Serres.

According to Dr. Mackill, the Sub1 project has shown the advantage of combining practical, applied work such as breeding and upstream, fundamental research.

““Knowing the exact gene responsible for a trait is not absolutely necessary for the MAS breeding approach, because a larger piece of the chromosome is transferred, normally containing many genes,” he says. “However, by understanding the processes triggered by SUB1A in detail, “we hope to improve on the existing Sub1 varieties by identifying novel flood-tolerance genes that allow us to develop hardier plants that survive even longer periods of

DR. ISMaIl and UC Riverside scientist Julia Bailey-Serres share a laugh at BRRI’s Rangpur station.


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BRRI SCIEntISt M.a. Mazid (second from right) speaks to onlookers about the success of farmer Mostafa Kamal’s (right) flood-tolerant rice trials. Mr. Kamal’s neighbor, Mohammad Shahidul Islam (left), is keen to grow the new varieties himself.

BRRI Former Director General Dr. Md. nur-E-Elahi (left) and BRRI scientist M.a. Mazid explain the flood-tolerant rice trials carried out at BRRI’s Rangpur station.

flooding, yet retain the characteristics that farmers want.”

With the Sub1 concept well and truly proved, seeds were sent for testing and refinement to national organizations in South Asia, including the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and, in India, the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Orissa and Narendra Dev University of Agriculture and Technology in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. The trial results there were also extremely promising.

In short, scientists had developed rice that could handle more than a week’s flooding with almost no loss of yield (1 week is enough to severely dent the harvest of the nontolerant versions) and would recover to produce a reasonable yield after even 2 weeks’ submergence (enough to almost wipe out nontolerant versions). Aside from the flood tolerance, the new varieties were virtually identical to their counterparts: farmers would be able to manage them in exactly the same way and, in the absence of flooding, achieve the same yield.

But, as any agricultural scientist will tell you, there is a vast gulf between the tightly controlled environment of the experiment station and the more capricious nature of a real farm. By 2007, the time had come to test the Sub1

varieties in farmers’ fields. In this setting, there was no way of controlling when flooding would occur, how long it would last, or whether it would even happen at all.

Moving forward to November 2008, to a small farm in Rangpur District in northwestern Bangladesh, researchers from IRRI, UC, and national institutes in India and Bangladesh commenced a South Asian tour to mark the completion of the project From genes to farmers’ fields: enhancing and stabilizing productivity of rice in submergence-prone environments, funded from 2004 to 2008 by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

If ever there was a country with flooding problems, Bangladesh is it. More than 1 million hectares—20%—of the country’s rice lands are flood prone.

“In those areas where flooding occurs once or twice and recedes within 12–14 days,” says BRRI Principal Scientific Officer M.A. Mazid, who has overseen the Sub1 trials at BRRI’s Rangpur station, “the Sub1 varieties could survive and improve yields by up to 3 tons per hectare.”

Given that Bangladesh is forced to import around 2 million tons of rice each year, BRRI Director General

Mohammad Firoze Shah Shikder says that successful flood-tolerant rice could substantially reduce, if not eliminate, the country’s imports.

“Sub1 varieties will add to the total production of the country,” he says. “They will save a lot of money that would otherwise be used for importing rice.”

Moreover, within that single, large-scale outcome, there would be thousands and thousands of equally positive, smaller-scale achievements. Many farm families, eking out a living on less than a hectare, could ensure that they had enough rice to eat year-round. Others would harvest enough to sell their surplus on the market and increase their income.

Mostafa Kamal is one of the farmers BRRI recruited to test the Sub1 varieties in his field. He and his brothers have a 6-hectare farm—large by Bangladeshi standards—that needs to produce enough rice each year to feed 22 members of the Kamal family. The farm suffers heavy losses because of flooding every 4 out of 5 years.

“In the past, many of my plots became fallow because they were flooded too often,” says Mr. Kamal, referring to the lowest-lying 2 hectares of the farm. “If we can cultivate on these plots, it will help us produce rice to sell on the market.


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FollowInG a 10-Day flood, orissa farmer Bidhu Bhusan Raut saw his Swarna-Sub1 recover well while his nontolerant Gayatri perished. “Better yielding is better living,” he says.

“FoRGEt SwaRna! Go for Swarna-Sub1!” says Basant Kumar Rao, a rice farmer from nuagaon Village near Cuttack in orissa. Here, he stands in his crop of Swarna-Sub1, which recovered well after two floods hit his farm in the 2007 wet season.

tHE DEVElopMEnt and testing of flood-tolerant rice varieties—on show here at BRRI’s Rangpur station—have attracted keen interest from plant scientists across the world.

Two extra hectares is a big jump.”So, how did the flood-tolerant

varieties fare? Twenty-three days after the 8 July transplanting of the 2008 wet-season crop, the farm was hit by a 15-day flood. When the waters receded, Mr. Kamal witnessed a wonderful thing. In his Sub1 plots, 95–98% of the plants recovered. In the non-Sub1 plots, the figure was 10–12%. Many of his neighboring farmers, who were not involved in the trial, lost their entire crops. So encouraged was Mr. Kamal, he planned to give away—not sell—a kilogram of flood-tolerant seeds to each of his neighbors.

“When I saw Mostafa’s field flooded, and then saw it recover, I was surprised—it was like magic,” recalls Mr. Kamal’s neighbor, Mohammad Shahidul Islam. The annual flash floods mean that Mr. Islam grows rice on only the upper half of his 1.6-hectare farm in the wet season. Each year, he needs to buy 1 to 2 months’ worth of rice to cover his family’s shortfall. He believes that flood-tolerant varieties will allow him to plant on his low-lying 0.8 hectare and cover that shortage. “These varieties,”

he says, “will mean more food, higher income, and a better livelihood.”

Observing the success of the flood-tolerant varieties in Bangladesh was a watershed moment for Sigrid Heuer, an IRRI molecular biologist who contributed to the analysis of SUB1A.

“I knew all along SUB1A was working in any type of rice we put it in,” she says. “I’ve seen it many times at IRRI and I’ve seen the data from the field experiments in India. But I’d never seen it in farmers’ fields with my own eyes. Here, I’ve seen it after

natural flooding for 15 days—the maximum time we think SUB1A should be able to withstand—and it’s working. It’s really fantastic.”

A short flight away in eastern India, it is the same story. The states of West Bengal and Orissa, along with Uttar Pradesh in the northeast, have all seen equally promising trial results and plan to completely replace Swarna with Swarna-Sub1 as soon as it is officially released by state seed certification agencies. In West Bengal, Swarna dominates, with 80% of the rice area already planted to the variety. A move to Swarna-Sub1 would therefore be relatively easy and stands to have enormous impact.

“Forget Swarna! Go for Swarna-Sub1!” is the advice from Basant Kumar Rao, a rice farmer from Nuagaon Village near Cuttack in Orissa. “I trust Swarna-Sub1. I’ll keep growing it. I got good money for it in 2007,” he says.

That year, his farm was hit by two floods, one of 11 days and one of 7 days. The flood-tolerant rice recovered after both floods and, although he was able to salvage a little of his regular Swarna, it yielded nowhere near as well.

“Better yielding is better living,” according to another Orissa farmer, Bidhu Bhusan Raut. In the 2008 wet season, Mr. Raut grew Gayatri, a popular Indian variety, and Swarna-Sub1 on his entire 1-hectare farm.

Rice Today April-June 2009 2918 19


ExaMInInG tRIalS at BRRI headquarters in Gazipur, K.M. Iftekharuddaula (right) has bred flood tolerance into popular Bangladeshi rice variety BR11, which accounts for more than one-third of the country’s wet-season plantings.

After a 10-day flood, the Sub1 plants recovered well, while the Gayatri plants perished.

According to CRRI Director T.K. Adhya, the release of flood-tolerant rice has become more and more important as India has grown economically.

“People used to grow rice in more favorable areas, where you had an assured source of water and good soil quality,” he explains. “Now, those interior areas are being taken over by human habitation and industry, so farmers are forced onto marginal lands in the coastal areas where flooding, salinity, and many other problems occur. In the past, farmers

simply had to face flooding and blame their luck if they didn’t get a harvest.”

IRRI plant physiologist Abdel Ismail, who is studying the mechanism of SUB1A’s action, says there is a strong case for rapid release of the new varieties.

“When you develop varieties using marker-assisted selection,” he says, “you do not change the variety much. Because the SUB1A gene is very specific in its expression and action during submergence, the Sub1 varieties should not have any other problems—such as susceptibility to diseases or insects—that their nontolerant counterparts wouldn’t have also. In the future, we expect

many new varieties to come out as products of MAS. If you have a submergence-tolerant or salt-tolerant variety, for example, you want it to go to the field as quickly as possible, where it can make a big difference.”

N. Shobha Rani, principal scientist at India’s Directorate of Rice Research, says that traditionally bred rice must undergo testing for 3 years in all-India trials, but this has been reduced to 2 years for MAS-derived varieties.

“The second year of testing is 2009,” says Dr. Rani, “so, April 2010 is the earliest time the Sub1 varieties could be recommended by the Central Variety Release Committee for national release.” She notes, however, that release could occur on a state basis before then.

In fact, on 27 February 2009, only a few months after Dr. Rani talked to Rice Today, the Uttar Pradesh State Varietal Release Committee officially released Swarna-Sub1. Being nearly identical—apart from its flood tolerance—to Swarna, this inaugural release of a Sub1 mega-variety occurred very quickly: only 6 years after the first cross was made at IRRI.

A quick release is also possible because plants developed through MAS are not transgenic (that is, genes of interest are transferred to the target species or variety using particular biotechnological tools rather than conventional breeding). Therefore, the new Sub1 varieties are


adam

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a patCH of the popular rice variety Swarna lies flattened and dying after several days of flooding. In contrast, the flood-tolerant version, Swarna-Sub1, rebounds to good health.

IRRI MolECUlaR biologist Sigrid Heuer (center) with her ph.D. student namrata Singh (left) and IRRI assistant scientist Darlene Sanchez at the Chinsurah Rice Research Station, in west Bengal, India.

not subject to the regulatory testing that can delay release of transgenic products for several years.

The Sub1 trait also came along with an additional bonus, a gene linked to SUB1A that turns the normally golden color of the hull of Swarna into a straw color. Although the hull color is not considered an important varietal requirement, this allows the seeds of Swarna-Sub1 to be easily distinguished from those of Swarna. This will be useful to maintain seed purity as seed producers start ramping up the production of foundation seed for distribution to farmers.

Another success to emerge from the Sub1 work has been the strengthening of national organizations such as BRRI and CRRI.

“In India now, MAS has a lot of support from the government,” says Dr. Ismail. “In Bangladesh, BRRI has its own lab for MAS, and not just for SUB1. In the national agricultural research and extension systems, the project has boosted capacity through resources and expertise, and also through government support.”

BRRI researcher K.M. Iftekharuddaula is a good example. He carried out his Ph.D. research under Dr. Mackill’s supervision at IRRI headquarters in the Philippines, developing a flood-tolerant version of popular Bangladeshi variety BR11, which accounts for more than one-

third of the country’s wet-season plantings. After completing his thesis research, he returned to Bangladesh, where he is now the BRRI breeder responsible for refining BR11-Sub1 varieties for official release.

“We are very much hopeful that we’ll be able to release at least two varieties from our efforts,” says Mr. Iftekharuddaula, who is also working with IRRI to incorporate disease resistance and salinity tolerance into BR11-Sub1.

As Sub1 varieties are officially released over the next 2 years, the key will be dissemination to smallholder farmers in flood-prone areas. IRRI is leading this initiative through the project Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Africa and South Asia, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. IRRI is also collaborating with national organizations to test Sub1 varieties in Southeast Asian countries, including Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, through a project funded by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Ismail adds that SUB1A’s effectiveness offers hope for research into tolerance of other so-called abiotic stresses, such as drought and salinity.

“The general notion with abiotic stresses used to be that it would be very difficult to find a single gene that can make much difference,” he says.

“This work has shown that you can get a single gene of great agronomic value. I think this has set the tone for solving other major difficulties in the field, such as problem soils.”

The story of the SUB1 research underscores the capacity of science to improve people’s lives, as well as the power inherent in a gene. It seems a long and unlikely journey from experimental plots in the Philippines and the laboratory benches in California to a small farm in Bangladesh.

For Drs. Ronald and Bailey-Serres, the chance to get out of the lab and see the Sub1 varieties in farmers’ fields has been a profound experience.

“It was amazing to see that this detailed genetic and physiological analysis ultimately has potential for a grand impact on people who are often living in pretty desperate situations,” Dr. Bailey-Serres says.

Even Dr. Heuer, who, through her work at IRRI, is no stranger to Asia’s rice fields, has been moved. “I had no idea about the impact we can have before seeing it with my own eyes,” she adds. “I’ve learned about the power of agricultural research here. I think it will have a huge impact.”

Mr. Barclay is a freelance writer based in Australia. See www.irri.org/flood-proof-rice.

31Rice Today April-June 200920 21


“The best adaptation to climate change is a breeding and seed system that rapidly develops,

deploys, and then replaces varieties so that farmers will always have access to varieties adapted to their current conditions,” said Gary Atlin, senior program officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in his keynote address at the 3rd Africa Rice Congress held in October 2013 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

This strategy is at the heart of the project Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA), which is helping smallholder farmers who produce their crop under mainly rainfed conditions and are vulnerable to flooding, drought, extreme temperatures, and soil problems, such as high salt and iron toxicity, that reduce yields. Some of these stresses are forecast to become more frequent and intense with climate change.

Climate change and farmingClimate change is already having a negative impact on Africa through extreme temperatures, frequent flooding and droughts, and increased salinity according to Baboucarr Manneh, irrigated-rice breeder at Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) and coordinator of the African component of the STRASA project.

These environmental stresses covered by the STRASA project have a significant impact on the productivity of rice farms and farmers’ income. Drought, for example, is a major problem in rice-growing areas of Africa that are predominantly rainfed. Rice yield losses attributed to iron toxicity range from 10 to 100%, with an estimated average of 50%. A survey

conducted in three West African countries (Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Guinea) by AfricaRice and national partners showed that more than 50% of the lowlands studied and about 60% of the cultivated rice plots were affected by iron toxicity.

“Until now, farmers didn’t have any solution to climate change except to keep using their traditional varieties,” said Peinda Cissé, a rice seed producer and founder-president of FEPRODES in Senegal (see Senegal's mother of modern rice farming, pages 38-39). She cited the Senegal River Delta as an example. Vast areas in the delta have been abandoned by rice farmers because of high soil salinity.

Mrs. Cissé also mentioned low night temperatures that often drop to 9°C during the harmattan (a dry, dusty wind on the West African coast occurring from December to February) season as another big constraint to rice production in the region.

A new generation of rice“That is why we welcome the new rice varieties tolerant of salt, cold, and iron toxicity for Africa announced

by the Africa Rice Breeding Task Force,” she said.

The stress-tolerant varieties are welcome additions to the ARICA (Advanced RICes for Africa) brand which was launched by AfricaRice in 2013 to offer

farmers a new generation of high-performing rice varieties for Africa.

Unlike the NERICA varieties, the ARICAs are not restricted to interspecific crosses. Any line that shows promise, regardless of its origin, can become an ARICA variety as long as the data that are collected are convincing.

ARICA varieties are selected after being successfully tested in many different conditions, including

Africa faces the reality of climate change with new rice varieties adapted to environmental stresses expected to become more frequent and intense


Climate-smart rice for Africa

COLD-TOLERANT rice variety nominated as ARICA10 by Africa Rice Breeding Task Force.

DR. BABOUCARR Manneh, STRASA-Africa Coordinator, working in the molecular biology laboratory, AfricaRice-Saint Louis, Senegal.

R RAMAN, AFRICARICE (4)


participatory varietal selection involving farmers. Improved rice varieties that are approved for release by some countries are also considered. Five ARICA varieties—three for rainfed lowland and two for upland ecology—were selected in 2013.

In March 2014, the Rice Breeding Task Force nominated the second series of ARICA consisting of six varieties with improved tolerance of environmental stresses, one of which is noteworthy as it combines tolerance of iron toxicity and of cold temperatures:

Iron-tolerant• ARICA 6 (IR75887-1-3-WAB1):

released in Guinea and identified for release in Ghana

• ARICA 8 (WAT 1046-B-43-2-2-2): released in Burkina Faso and identified for release in Guinea

Cold-tolerant identified in Mali• ARICA 9 (SIM2 SUMADEL)• ARICA 10 (WAS 200-B-B-1-1-1)

Salt-tolerant• ARICA 11 (IR63275-B-1-1-1-3-

3-2): released in The Gambia.

Cold- and iron-tolerant• ARICA 7 (WAS 21-B-B-20-

4-3-3): identified for release in Ghana (tolerant of iron toxicity)/identified for release in Senegal (cold-tolerant)

These varieties were evaluated through the STRASA project, implemented by IRRI and AfricaRice in partnership with national programs in 18 countries and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“It’s wonderful to see that products of the first two phases of the STRASA project in Africa have now reached the stage to move into farmers’ fields,” said Dr. Atlin. “I am also impressed by the

Africa Rice Breeding Task Force testing network set up in partnership with the national systems as it is a great conduit for moving improved materials into farmers’ fields.”

In addition to the ARICAs, the STRASA project has many other stress-tolerant or climate-smart rice varieties in the pipeline that will be delivered to farmers. The STRASA project uses conventional breeding combined with molecular breeding to develop these kinds of varieties.

“Incorporating stress tolerance into popular high-yielding varieties has proven to be a very effective approach,” explained Dr. Manneh.

More than 30 stress-tolerant rice varieties have already been released in nine African countries with support from the STRASA project, according to Dr. Manneh. However, as they were developed before the launching of the ARICA brand, they were not nominated as ARICAs.

Diffusing technologyThrough the project, STRASA partners produced more than 15,000 tons of improved seed between 2008 and 2012 and distributed these to farmers. More than a thousand scientists, technicians, and farmers have been trained in improved rice cultivation techniques, seed production, new breeding methods, and seed enterprise management.

“One of the key impact points for STRASA

will be the quantity of seed

produced and disseminated to farmers,” said Dr. Manneh. “As seed

production continues

to be a major bottleneck in Africa,

the main thrust of our

recent STRASA meeting was to help countries develop seed road maps.”

The project is linking up with various partners, including nongovernment organizations such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and BRAC, as well as private seed producers such as FEPRODES and NAFASO, for the dissemination of improved seed in Africa. AfricaRice has developed an automated monitoring and evaluation tool to track the diffusion of new technologies.

Multiple toleranceSometimes, various stresses, such as salinity, cold, submergence, and iron toxicity, can occur at the same time.

“That’s why the third phase of the STRASA project will focus on breeding for multiple stress tolerance,” Dr. Manneh explained. The rice varieties that are being developed will help overcome the hurdles imposed by the widespread environmental stresses that limit rice yields in Africa.

“To achieve this, we will strengthen our collaboration with development partners who have the capacity for rapid delivery of improved rice varieties to our farmers,” Dr. Manneh added.

Ms. Mohapatra is the head of Marketing and Communications at AfricaRice.

RICE-CROSSES made as part of STRASA-Africa partnership.

SELECTING RICE for cold tolerance.

22 23

David Mackill grew up in San Diego, California, in the 1960s and early ‘70s, enjoying the life of a surfer on the nearby

Pacific coast. “I spent a lot of time on the waves and quite a bit of time being ‘submerged’ by the waves,” he said, fondly recalling his surfer days. “And, I sometimes thought, ‘it’s too bad there isn’t a career in this.’” Little did he know then, that—using the operational word “submerged”—he indeed would end up in a profession that would ultimately enable him to improve the lives of millions of rice farmers in Asia and beyond!

Father of the SUB1 geneFlash forward about 40 years to Tilaktajpur (photo above) and Samauta villages in Bihar State situated in northeastern India. In this region, vast expanses of rice fields are annually prone to total crop losses due to serious flooding or “submergence” of the plants. When farmers from these areas heard that Dr. Mackill was in India, they invited the former principal scientist and plant breeder for the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to visit them in their fields. When he arrived in Samauta village, many hailed him as their “messiah” and the “father” of the SUB1 gene.

These farmers had started planting Swarna-Sub1, a new submergence-tolerant rice variety, during the 2009-10 growing season. They had received the seeds through Rajendra Agricultural University in Pusa, Bihar, under IRRI’s Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Africa and South Asia (STRASA) project.

During that cropping season, many rice fields around the villages

were flooded for 8 to 12 days and the crop failed completely. However, some farmers who had planted Swarna-Sub1 in the same areas and experienced the same submergence were surprised to see the rice plants in their fields rapidly regenerate after the water receded. The farmers harvested 5–6 tons per hectare from their fields and found the new submergence-tolerant rice to have good cooking quality as well. They called it a “miracle variety”—a variety that Dr. Mackill and his colleagues at IRRI were responsible for developing.

“The farmers also shared their experiences and concerns with me,” Dr. Mackill recalled. “Many of the farmers in Samauta village were excited about growing Swarna-Sub1 in the forthcoming season, which has started in June 2011. I thanked them for their invitation to visit them and promised that their feedback will help in our further research to improve rice.”

Later, upon hearing about Dr. Mackill’s interactions with the Bihar farmers, IRRI Director General Robert Zeigler commented: “The gratitude of the farmers expressed towards Dave is a profound reminder and endorsement of what IRRI is all about.”

Those particular encounters also fulfilled a young surfer’s dream to do something one day that would have a lot of impact and help people. As he planned his university studies back in 1972 to achieve that dream, Dr. Mackill began to look into agriculture and the agricultural sciences.

Rice by chanceHe started college at UC San Diego, but then switched to the large agricultural

college at UC Davis, the University of California campus just west of the state capital of Sacramento. “I was always interested in genetics, which was one of my best subjects in the biological sciences,” Dr. Mackill said. “Fortuitously, I put genetics and agriculture together and came up with plant breeding. One thing I like about plant breeding is that it is kind of an art. It is not just confined to analyzing data; you never really know what is going to come out of your efforts.”

During the time he was an undergraduate in college (1972-76), the international agricultural research centers were becoming well known for their work on the hunger problem in the world. IRRI, of course, was at the forefront of the Green Revolution in Asia. So, this came to his attention early on.

“More or less by chance, I ended up getting a job working as an undergraduate in a rice research project involving genetics at UC Davis,” recalled Dr. Mackill.

While at UC Davis working on rice, the budding plant breeder got to know some of the people who occasionally visited from IRRI, including Gurdev Khush, future World Food Prize Laureate and IRRI rice breeder and principal scientist, 1967-2001; and Ronnie Coffman, IRRI plant breeder, 1971-81, and currently chair of Cornell University’s Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, and director of International Programs. Soon, he would be a colleague of both.

“I became aware of a project of the Rockefeller Foundation that gave students fellowships to work overseas at one of the international centers,” said Dr. Mackill. “So, in 1978, Ronnie Coffman

by Gene Hettel

A rice breeder’s odyssey from surfer to scientist—and onward to “Mars”

strasa

Rice Today July-September 201112

helped me set up my thesis research on heat tolerance in rice at IRRI.”

After obtaining his PhD in genetics in 1981, he went job hunting still very interested in agriculture. He got an opportunity to work on sorghum as an international intern at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT). “I found that dealing with sorghum was quite different from working on rice and I missed IRRI,” he said. “So, about a year later, when IRRI expressed an interest that I come back to the Philippines, I jumped at the opportunity to join IRRI’s Plant Breeding Department as a breeder working on rice improvement for rainfed lowland conditions and the genetics of resistance to rice blast and tolerance for drought, problem soils—and submergence.”

Bringing the Green Revolution to more farmersHis new job at IRRI was to try to bring the Green Revolution to probably more than half of the world’s rice farmers who, as of the early 1980s, had not yet benefited from the new short-statured rice plants. The new varieties were not suited to the field-submergence conditions that prevailed in the densely populated deltas, estuaries, and river valleys of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. There were other rice farmers in these same countries whose crops suffered due to drought and poor soils as well.

On the submergence front, Dr. Mackill pointed out that scientists had long known that an Indian rice variety, called FR13A, could survive a week or more of complete submergence, but conventional breeding methods were not successful in developing varieties popular with the farmers. So, he and his colleagues at IRRI and UC Davis—during his 1991-2001 stint there—began using marker-assisted selection (MAS) to transfer the FR13A submergence-tolerance trait to modern rice varieties. It turned out to be nearly a 30-year odyssey of ups and downs to achieve what now has farmers like those in Bihar so excited and grateful. This rice saga is aptly told in the 2009 article Scuba rice: stemming the tide in flood-prone Asia, on pages 26-31 of Rice Today Vol. 8, No. 2.

When the article, SUB1A is an ethylene-response-factor-like gene that confers submergence tolerance to

rice, was published in Nature (442:705-708, 10 August 2006), there was really tremendous excitement among the California and IRRI groups. “I was really pleased that this reflected the basic work that I started at UC Davis with Pamela Ronald and Kenong Xu in the Department of Plant Pathology there, and other colleagues at UC Davis and Riverside,” said Dr. Mackill. “But it also included the work done at IRRI. That paper essentially recorded the development of Swarna-Sub1 and everyone’s contributions. At that time, Swarna-Sub1 was so new that we didn’t know how it would perform. But, since then, it has done rather well as, for example, the Tilaktajpur and Samauta village farmers can attest to.”

Dr. Mackill thinks that, over the last several years, IRRI has been able to push the MAS technology to develop varieties that give farmers a better chance to have a decent crop when their fields are threatened by not only submergence but also other abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity.

IRRI researchers haven’t found any single gene like the SUB1 gene that bestows the same level of tolerance for other stresses, but they have, for example, found multiple genes that impart a significant drought tolerance. “By combining several of them,” explained Dr. Mackill, “we can transfer a pretty good degree of multiple stress tolerance, for both submergence and drought, into a given popular variety that is already being used by farmers. Instead of introducing only the SUB1

gene, a variety can now have two or three drought-tolerance genes in it as well.”

Onward to "Mars"After nearly 20 years combined over two assignments at IRRI, Dr. Mackill has decided to try something new back home in California. “I don’t know any scientist who has left IRRI previously who can say that he or she went to ‘Mars’ next, but that is where I’ve been since February,” he smiled. “Mars Incorporated is a private company that owns, among many other enterprises, Uncle Ben’s Rice.”

In a press release, Marc Turcan, Mars Incorporated’s vice president of R&D and supply, stated, “David will be the bridge between the company and the scientific community, initiating new research to advance global understanding as well as channeling the world’s leading scientific expertise into Mars, to help us continually improve our sustainability and nutritional performance.”

His future collaboration with IRRI was cemented with the announcement on 1 April that he had been appointed as a consultant to the Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology Division at the Institute to assist in planning STRASA’s Phase 2 work as well as to advise the Eastern India Rainfed Lowland Shuttle Breeding Network. The odyssey continues.

View Dr. Mackill’s exit seminar at IRRI on YouTube at http://snipurl.com/mackill_seminar. His full IRRI Pioneer interview can be found at http://archive.irri.org/Mackill.asp.

During his 20 years at IRRI, Dr. Mackill has worked with many other renowned rice breeders such as Gurdev Khush and Ronnie Coffman. Here, he confers with Dr. Darshan Brar (left), his successor as head of IRRI’s Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology Division since 2007 and who, after 24 years at the Institute himself, is scheduled to retire at the end of 2011. Of his relationship with his colleague and friend, Dr. Mackill said, “I think we share similar experiences of being at IRRI for so long and during the same era. We’ve experienced a lot of changes at IRRI over the years and so we share similar viewpoints.”

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13Rice Today July-September 201124 25


Ram Behal Maurya (right), 54, coughs as he settles himself slowly on a run-down cot just outside his house. In 10 days’

time, he and his sons will be harvesting rice from a small piece of land he inherited from his father. Unfortunately, Mr. Maurya’s farm is in one of the flash-flood-prone areas in the eastern state of Uttar Pradesh in India, where crops can be completely wiped out from floods. For a poor farmer tilling less than a hectare of land planted mostly with rice and wheat, he reaps an average of 1.6 tons of rice per hectare, barely enough to feed his extended family of 13 members until the next harvest. But this season, he has high hopes of getting a higher yield.

A growing number of subsistence farmers as well as seed growers are now planting “climate-change-ready” rice in the rice bowl state of Uttar Pradesh and the speedy uptake is unprecedented. The improved varieties are capable of surviving even under harsh environments such as drought or floods that are predicted to get worse with climate change or in problematic soils with high salt content that may become more widespread as sea levels rise because of climate change. The climate-change-ready rice has been bred into local mega-varieties that are high-yielding and widely grown by farmers.

Breeding for farmersThe International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), together with its partners, develops improved rice varieties that are tolerant of various environmental stresses, helping farmers curb yield losses, particularly those who farm on stress-prone farmlands.

Through IRRI’s research, plant breeders have identified a gene that confers tolerance of submergence and chromosomal regions that confer tolerance of drought and soil salinity.

The result is a rice variety that is resilient to a particular environmental stress, is high-yielding, and retains other desirable qualities of the original variety, such as good grain quality and palatability. Under the IRRI-led project Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in South Asia and Africa (STRASA), farmers now see the results in their own fields. Thousands more in India and parts of South Asia have been adopting stress-tolerant varieties at unprecedented rates.

Seeing is believingAbout 78 kilometers away from Mr. Maurya’s farm is Rampur Village, where Kamalawati Ramkeval (see photo on page 19) is happy with her harvest. Both farmers suffer from annual harvest losses caused by incessant rains and flash floods. IRRI plant breeders found that the SUB1 gene confers tolerance of submergence. They bred the SUB1 gene into the mega-variety Swarna, a high-yielding variety widely grown in Uttar Pradesh. In field trials, Swarna-Sub1 survived up to 14 days in floodwater and outyielded flood-susceptible varieties by at least 1 ton per hectare. In 2009, Swarna-Sub1 was officially released for planting by the government of India.

Mr. Maurya and Ms. Ramkeval each planted the flood-proof Swarna-Sub1 in their respective fields during the kharif or monsoon season. Although his crop was under floodwater for 12 days, Mr. Maurya was able to harvest 2.5 tons per hectare of unmilled Swarna-Sub1, almost twice his harvest from variety Soankhar of past cropping seasons. Although Soankhar has the ability to grow as water rises, it yields barely 1 ton per hectare. As for his latest harvest, Mr. Maurya intends to keep a small portion of Swarna-Sub1 seeds for planting next season and sell the remaining seeds to farmers in adjoining villages.

Ms. Ramkeval, on the other hand,

was lucky as her field was not flooded this year. She harvested 6.5 tons per hectare of unmilled Swarna-Sub1. “I will save the harvest for my family,” she says. ”We work hard to grow it so we’d rather not sell it.” Like Mr. Maurya, she has seen a substantial increase in yields in her family’s rice fields and she plans to keep some of the seeds for the next monsoon.

Meanwhile, Meera Prabunath, also from Rampur Village, had a bountiful harvest but of a different rice variety. In the past, her less-than-a-hectare land was left to fallow because of drought. In 2010, Ms. Prabunath planted seeds of a drought-tolerant rice variety released in India as Sabhagi dhan. IRRI scientists developed this variety through conventional breeding but have now discovered the region of a chromosome, known as quantitative trait loci (QTLs), that contains genes believed to express drought tolerance. These QTLs will

Story and photos by Mutya Frio

Ready for climate changeFarmers are fast adopting stress-tolerant varieties of rice to head off yield losses


be used for breeding in the same way as the SUB1 gene to develop drought-tolerant rice varieties. Last season, Ms. Prabunath harvested 4.15 tons per hectare of Sabhagi dhan, transforming a formerly drought-prone land into a viable source of sustenance and income for her family.

The key is in partnershipsNew rice technologies, such as these stress-tolerant varieties, will hardly make a dent in ensuring food security in the household and nationally unless they are widely adopted by farmers. Some effective mechanisms make new rice varieties accessible to and adoptable by farmers. The key to success is through partnerships.

In India, IRRI has been working with various stakeholders to develop and disseminate climate-change-ready rice. These partners are national and state governments, agricultural research and extension centers, universities, nonprofit organizations, farmers’ groups, and seed growers.

What makes climate-change-ready rice easily accessible to farmers is that various research institutions have already been multiplying the seeds even before the variety is officially released by the government. Dr. Umesh Singh, IRRI senior scientist and project coordinator for STRASA in India, says, “Once it is released, we encourage state governments as they distribute the seeds to seed corporations for large-scale multiplication, and they also disseminate the seeds directly to farmers in target areas. Farmers do not have to wait for 2–3 years for mass distribution.”

Furthermore, IRRI has partnered with India’s National Food Security Mission (NFSM), the national government’s mega-scheme that aims to increase food self-sufficiency in targeted states where food production is low. In 2010, NFSM distributed 16,000 mini-kits (5-kilogram seed packets) of the flood-proof Swarna-Sub1 in Uttar Pradesh in time for the following year’s kharif. Through targeted dissemination, IRRI has identified more than 2,000 flood-prone villages in Uttar Pradesh. Each village received 5–10 mini-kits of Swarna-Sub1.

More seeds had to be multiplied. In time for last year’s kharif, the state government of Uttar Pradesh launched

a program for seed multiplication of Swarna-Sub1, to be planted on 1,200 hectares. “The STRASA project is very important to us,” says Dr. Mukesh Gautam, director of agriculture in Uttar Pradesh. “About a million hectares of land is flood-affected,” he reveals. “We fully support the production of Swarna-Sub1 and we see this improved variety eventually replacing the original Swarna variety.”

In 2010, NSFM approved the distribution of 69,000 mini-kits for planting on more than 11,000 hectares all over India.

From the grass rootsAgricultural extension agencies, farmers’ groups, and nonprofit organizations are highly effective conduits of technology dissemination because they are directly in touch with farmers. One such organization is Nand Educational Foundation for Rural Development (NEFORD), which helps spread information about Swarna-Sub1.

“Farmers have to be convinced of the technology first,” says Dr. R.K. Singh, NEFORD executive director. “Then, we do a systems technology transfer—not just mere technology transfer, but a model where all the elements are in place.”

Kissan mela or a farmers’ fair is also a good venue for farmers and input providers, where Swarna-Sub1 seeds can be purchased at an affordable price subsidized by the government. Using

mass media, both state and national media, helps spread the word not only to farmers and seed growers, but, more importantly, to policymakers and other players in the rice sector.

“Once you have created a demand for the technology, you can promote it and influence policy,” Dr. R.K. Singh shares. “This is how it worked for us in promoting Swarna-Sub1.”

Moreover, making the technology affordable and available to farmers ensures a quick adoption. The Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG), a nonprofit organization, helps sell Swarna-Sub1 seeds to farmers at a subsidized rate of 18–20 rupees or less than half a dollar per kilogram. GEAG purchases the seeds from the Baranas Hindu University, which multiplies the seeds.

“When farmers see satisfying results, they ask where they can get seeds,” says Dr. Anita Singh, GEAG project coordinator. “In 2010, more farmers multiplied Swarna-Sub1 seeds and this will continue to grow. More seeds need to be distributed in 2011.”

Meanwhile, a Primary Producers Company (PPC) was established by Grameen Development Services (GDS) in Uttar Pradesh, another partner in the STRASA project. The PPC, led and managed by farmers, is a registered company licensed to sell and market seeds, register seed producers as members, run a seed processing plant, and distribute and sell fertilizers. It boasts of 1,500 farmer-members who can procure seeds from universities at a wholesale rate, thus avoiding the black market where prices can become exorbitant.

“Through the PPC, farmers reduce the middlemen in the process of procurement and distribution,” explains Ghansyan Mishra, GDS project coordinator. “They can now procure truthfully labeled seeds directly, instead of waiting for a long time for certified seeds to come into the market. We want to reduce the time lag and the inputs.”

Truly, forging partnerships with the public and private sector as well as with nonprofit organizations is key to a successful technology adoption. For small farmers like Ram Behal, Kamalawati, and Meera, they are the ultimate measures of success where the products of research are gaining ground fast.

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10 11Rice Today April-June 2014Rice Today April-June 2014

Under the scorching sun and cloudless skies, farmer Prabhawati Devi builds her oasis using a rice variety that defies the drought that often parches her land

A car can usually travel down the narrow concrete road in Nagwa Village of Maharanjganj District in

eastern Uttar Pradesh. However, during this second week of November—harvest time in the fields surrounding the village—piles of rice straw clogged the way, making passage virtually impossible.

Most of the women, including Prabhawati Devi, were busy cutting the straw and piling it neatly on jute sacks that were cut open to serve as mats for the straw. As she was gather-ing the edges of the stalks, Mrs. Devi said with a smile, “These are Sahb-hagi.” Sahbhagi is what the farmers and villagers call Sahbhagi dhan, a drought-tolerant rice variety released in India in 2009 (see Making rice less thirsty on pages 12-15 of Rice Today, Vol. 8, No. 3). The straw of Sahbhagi dhan is popular among the women in Nagwa, who feed it to their cattle.

It’s a woman’s lifeBrick and mud houses, scattered along the road of Nagwa, are not big enough to shield from view the residents inside as they go about their daily chores. One woman was cooking just inside her front door, squinting under the almost-midday sun and shielding her eyes with her hands from the smoke of the burning fuelwood.

Outside her house, another woman was threshing rice manually—raising her arms as high as she could

as she smashed a bunch of rice stalks on a surface covered with fine mesh net. She gathered the separated grains with her hands, placing the grains at the center of the net and putting the empty stalks neatly to her side. She rose once in a while to straighten her back from her squatting position. Yet another woman had just returned from harvesting rice bundles in the field. Women often harvest rice in staggered shifts because they want to give the fresh rice stalks to their cattle.

Nagwa looked like a village of women in a flurry of activities. Their bright saris made them more visible under the bright, scorching sun.

"As more men migrate from rural areas to the cities to look for 'greener pastures,' women then take on the farming activities that the men leave behind," commented Abha Singh, an associate scientist based in Faizabad, eastern Uttar Pradesh. She is one of the many women who Thelma Paris, a gender specialist recently retired from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), took under her wings (see Blazing the trail of women's empowerment on pages 18-19).

An all-or-nothing gambleIn eastern Uttar Pradesh, where rice production is predominantly rainfed, growing rice is so risky that farmers take a gamble every cropping season and can only hope for the best. They have no choice but to place their bet. When luck is on their side, during a year with ample rainfall, the farmers are blessed with enough food to sustain their families till the next cropping season. But, when drought strikes, the price of crop failure means losing all their investments—labor, seed, and inputs—and long, lean, hungry months ahead.

“The eastern part of India was considered a ‘hunger belt’ that is why IRRI started working on the

dissemination of stress-tolerant rice varieties in 2008 through the Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) project,” said Umesh Singh, STRASA’s regional coordinator. In 2007, Dr. Singh, along with other IRRI scientists, successfully convinced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that this project would provide much-needed assistance to these farmers.

“The project aims to develop rice varieties that can withstand flood, drought, and salinity, among other stresses brought about by climate change,” he added. “We call these new varieties climate-smart rice.”

STRASA researchers evaluate these varieties, including participatory varietal selection (PVS) involving farmers. Gender is integrated into most activities under STRASA and the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP), the CGIAR Program on Rice, that aim to give women farmers input into the selection of improved rice varieties that are approved for release. It also helps in creating awareness among the farmers even before the formal release of a variety. This participatory varietal selection process, modified by Dr. Paris and

Creating an oasis with riceStory and photos by Lanie Reyes

her research team, initially required that women make up at least 30% of the participating farmers. Women’s participation will hopefully increase to 50% in the next phase.

“STRASA works with the nation-al research partners to get the variet-ies released and notified for com-mercial cultivation," explained Dr. Singh. “It also works closely with the developmental organizations includ-ing federal and state governments for the outscaling of new varieties.”

A refuge of a woman farmerWomen farmers such as Mrs. Devi are benefiting greatly from STRASA. Her concrete house has sturdy concrete posts; its blue paint faded just slightly, hinting that she has lived there for just a short time. As I made myself comfortable on a wooden stool, I noticed a gathering crowd of women, children, and some men blocking the natural light coming in from the door. Mrs. Devi grabbed a chair and sat in front of me. Her smile concealed her age and the hard life she has endured.

“This year, I harvested around 22 quintals per acre of Sahbhagi on my three acres of land,” she said excited-

PRABHAWATI DEVI shows her newly harvested Sahbhagi dhan, a rice variety that assures her of a harvest even when drought strikes.

THE STRAW of Sahbhagi dhan, a drought-tolerant rice, is a popular cattle feed.

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ly. (Twenty-two quintals is equivalent to 2.2 tons and one acre is 0.4 hectare.) “Over the last two years, when plant-ing Sahbhagi, I earned around 20,000 rupees (about US$330) per acre.”

Dr. Singh confirmed that the average yield of Sahbhagi dhan is 4 to 5 tons per hectare when other traditional varieties yield only about 2.5 tons under normal conditions. “What is remarkable is that even under severe drought, where traditional and other high-yielding varieties often yield nothing, Sahbhagi dhan can still produce 1 to 2 tons per hectare,” Dr. Singh said. And since Sahbhagi dhan is a short-duration crop that matures in 105 days (medium- to long-duration traditional varieties take 120–150 days to maturity), another bonus is that farmers can plant the next crop earlier giving them enough time to plant three crops in a year!

Mrs. Devi plants peas, after rice, and then follows with onions. She usually earns $750 from her peas and as much as $580 from the onion crop. For the last two years, she has also been selling Sahbhagi seeds at about $0.50 per kilogram compared to $0.25 per kilogram when sold as grains. This gives her an extra $250.00 per ton of rice.

While a traditional variety such as Sarju55 requires four irrigations, Sahbhagi dhan requires only two. Farmers can save up to two irriga-tions; each irrigation usually incurs an energy cost of $30. Therefore, farmers planting Sahbhagi dhan can save $60 per crop.

Empowered genderThe strong-spirited Mrs. Devi is known in the village for having a progressive outlook. She took on the role of the family breadwinner when her husband was stricken with hypertension and a heart problem, making him unable to work.

“God has blessed me with four cows, so no worries,” she said with an air of cheerfulness that never left her face since I met her two hours ago. Cows are considered “helpmeets” in rural India as they provide milk, a source of protein for the family. She sells some extra milk to her neighbors. A cow can assure them of additional income of about $3 a day. Cows will continue to give milk for several months as long as they are healthy and well-fed. This is why Sahbhagi dhan straw is very important in most farming households.

“Four of my five daughters are married,” she proudly related. In her village, a married daughter implies that a household has a healthy financial status because the cost of

the dowry can range from $400 to more than $800—an amount that is difficult to come by for ordinary farmers.

“My life is now easier as I have only one daughter left to marry,” she said. After that day comes, Mrs. Devi dreams of enhancing her “oasis” by purchasing a new house and maybe even a new car. She already owns a second-hand white van that she rents out as a public utility vehicle.

When a young man in his early twenties approached Mrs. Devi, she proudly introduced him as her son, who graduated from a three-year college course and now works in Bombay. Mrs. Devi has become an inspiration to other women in Nagwa. She has been able to save $800 through a self-help group (SHG) for women. This amount was added to the SHG’s capital that is available for loans to members at very low interest rates. They can use the money for household or farm-related needs.

At the end of each year, they distribute the dividends among themselves. One woman farmer bought a pair of earrings from the dividend she got. “This speaks a lot about these women,” Dr. Paris later pointed out. “The money they’ve earned themselves can now be used in any way they want. To them, jewelry is a valuable asset they can claim they own. They can sell it, use it as collateral for more loans or give it as a gift for a daugher’s dowry. This is empowerment in plain clothes.”

Ms. Reyes is the managing editor of Rice Today.

SINCE SAHBHAGI dhan matures earlier, farmers can plant three crops in a year. Mrs. Devi and her husband usually cultivate pea and onion crops after rice.

WOMEN FARMERS, especially those from the lower castes, do most of the work in rice farming.

40 Rice Today January-March 2014

Rice facts

Swarna-Sub1 is the flood-tolerant version of the

popular mega-variety Swarna (MTU 7029) in eastern India. It was developed by scientists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), evaluated and released in India by Central Rice research Institute (CRRI), and disseminated by IRRI in collaboration with the national agricultural research systems, government organizations, nongovernment organizations, and public and private seed companies in India. In the eastern state of Odisha, where Swarna occupies more than 30% of the total rice area, both the state and central government are distributing Swarna-Sub1 seeds through various schemes such as the National Food Security Mission and Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI).

Swarna-Sub1 is almost identical to its counterpart Swarna in terms of grain yield and grain quality, but it has an added advantage—it can survive full submergence for more than 2 weeks. However, the husk color of Swarna-Sub1 is much lighter than that of Swarna, which is reddish.

Because of this difference, the farmers in Odisha call Swarna “Nali Swarna” (Red Swarna) and Swarna-Sub1 “Dhala Swarna” (White Swarna).

Farmers’ feedbackIn October 2013, during our visit to Jajpur District, a stronghold of Swarna, which is grown on 65% of the total rice area, we made several stops throughout the day and talked with farmers about the performance of Swarna-Sub1. Our visit took place 2 days before the state was expected to be pounded by cyclone Phailin, one of the most powerful tropical storms ever to make landfall in India.

Most of the feedback from farmers on Swarna-Sub1 was quite positive. There were a few complaints

regarding seed shattering of Swarna-Sub1 during harvest and transportation. But, most of the farmers who grew Swarna-Sub1 for the first time in 2012 on parts of their land have expanded it to their entire landholding.

In Amathpur Village, located between two rivers, the Birupa and Brahmani, we also came across a large patch of land of about 80 hectares, which was mostly

planted with Swarna-Sub1. Normally before, this area was left fallow because of frequent flooding during the kharif season. Then, the farmers would plant the area with mungbean once the floodwater receded.

We were told that that was the first time many farmers planted rice in the area because they were able to get access to flood-tolerant Swarna-Sub1 through the BGREI seed distribution program. Coincidently, the area was flooded for 6 to 8 days due to heavy rainfall that preceded the cyclone and, as expected, Swarna-Sub1 recovered quite well from the flood.

In the late afternoon, we visited a few nonflood-prone villages in Binjharpur block where a nonprofit organization had distributed Swarna-

Odisha farmers embraced flood-tolerant rice not only as food on their table but as a worthy offering to Lakshmi, their goddess.

Swarna -Sub1:

by Samarendu Mohanty and Debdutt Behura

Odisha’s food for a goddess

Mana filled with freshly harvested Swarna-Sub1.

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41Rice Today January-March 2014

The enTrance of a house decorated with chita.

Braided Swarna-Sub1 paddy is hung in front of the house to bring prosperity.

Sub1 seeds in the 2012 wet season. Surprisingly, even in areas that are not prone to flooding, many farmers had a favorable opinion about Swarna-Sub1. Swarna-Sub1 has been adopted by some farmers in the second season because of its resistance to diseases, particularly to sheath blight. However, many other farmers have decided to grow Swarna-Sub1 on parts of their land because of its lighter husk color, which is preferred for offerings to their deities during religious rites.

Margasira masa (month in Oriya), which normally falls in mid-November to mid-December, is one of the auspicious months that coincides with the paddy harvest, threshing, and storage. Every Thursday of this month, known as the Manabasa Gurubar, freshly harvested paddy is filled in a mana (a pot made out of bamboo cane used for measuring paddy in the old days) and is placed at the center of a circular chita to worship the goddess Lakshmi.

Chita is the traditional Oriya art form in which walls and floors are decorated with murals using semi-liquid rice paste. The drawings could be small footmarks of Lakshmi, a stack of paddy, flowers, peacocks, and elephants, among other designs. The married women in every household

clean and decorate the floor, wall, entrances, and grain storage structure with chita. The new paddy harvest is also braided and hung in front of the house, near a pooja altar (a special place in the room used during worship and also kept near the mana).

We went back to Jajpur District in December, the last Manabasa Gurubar of 2013, to witness the use of new Swarna-Sub1 paddy during this holy month. After visiting around 15 villages in Binjharpur block, we

knew already that Swarna-Sub1 is widely accepted by the community for Manabasa Gurubar and for other religious uses.

The future of Swarna-Sub1Swarna-Sub1 outyields Swarna and other popular varieties under submerged conditions. This makes Swarna ideal for flood-prone rice areas in the state. Apart from replacing Swarna and other popular nonflood-tolerant varieties, it can make perennially flooded areas flourish with rice. Before, these areas were normally left fallow during the kharif season, just like what has happened in Amathpur Village. Lastly, Swarna-Sub1 may not be just limited to flood-prone rice areas. It could potentially take a slice of nonflood-prone rice areas because it is becoming more acceptable for cultural and religious uses.

Note: Thanks to Drs. Achim Dobermann, Umesh Singh, Abdel Ismail, and Takashi Yamano for some excellent suggestions.

Dr. Mohanty is the head of the Social Sciences Division and program leader (Targetting and policy) at IRRI. Dr. Behura is an assistant professor at the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology.


by Lanie C. Reyes

Efficient GM technologies and an innovative drought-screening facility at IRRI increase the chances of discovering new candidate genes for the development of drought-tolerant rice

Drought brings to mind negative images of wide expanses of dry and parched lands. It is often associated with abject poverty,

distraught farmers, hungry children, sickness, and sometimes hopelessness (see Dreams beyond drought, pages 15-21 of Rice Today Vol. 4 No. 2).

According to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI),1 about 38% of the world area—home to 70% of the total population and source of 70% of global food production—suffers from drought. The effects of this problem are massive and devastating for the rice farmers who need to plant the crop that feeds half the world's people.

Drought is a formidable foe, which IRRI fights untiringly through rice research. Most scientists agree that it is one of the most complex and toughest stresses to overcome when compared with other constraints such as salinity, flooding, pests, and diseases.

Considering that rice is a water-adapted plant grown in flooded fields, helping it cope with water stress and enabling it to produce economically good yields under drought is a great challenge.

But, this does not stop IRRI scientists from finding answers and new solutions for breeding new varieties and from understanding the effects of drought on rice at the genetic and molecular level (see

1 See Economic costs of drought and rice farmers’ coping mechanisms, edited by S. Pandey, H. Bhandari, and B. Hardy, 2007.

2 See Redesigning rice photosynthesis to increase yield, edited by J.E. Sheehy, P.L. Mitchell, and B. Hardy, 2000.3 www.nuffieldbioethics.org/fileLibrary/pdf/gmcrop.pdf

Overcoming the toughest stress in rice:

Making rice less thirsty on pages 12-14). For them, the challenge is clear―increase rice yield despite drought.

One potential solution for better understanding drought complexities is through genetic modification (GM, also called transgenics, uses modern biotechnology techniques to change the genes of an organism).

Concidentally, scientists have been using genetic modification in some forms for years. In fact, all crops have been genetically improved (modified) for millennia by selection by farmers and by breeding in the past hundred years.2 In addition, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics concluded in 1999 that genetic engineering could be considered as natural as conventional plant breeding.3

For farmers, GM crops are no longer a novelty. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) reported in 2008 that 25 countries cultivated GM crops, including the developing countries Egypt and Burkina Faso. ISAAA reported that

between 2007 and 2008, the area grown to GM crops rose by 9.4% or 10.7 million hectares, totaling more than 120 million hectares. An increasing number of people consider GM as a potential source for more benefits in agriculture, for example, for a rice variety tolerant to drought.

Research groups at IRRI, led by Drs. Rachid Serraj, crop physiologist, and Inez H. Slamet-Loedin, cell biologist, are currently working on drought-tolerant varieties using GM. (For a general idea about this process, see Tool box for making GM rice.). “Current GM technologies at IRRI are very efficient for both indica and japonica rice cultivars, and there is no major technical bottleneck in producing a large number of ‘events’ (independent plants generated from

Dr. Inez Slamet-LoedinDr. Rachid Serraj

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31Rice Today July-September 2009

a GM cell) as long as there is space to plant and characterize them,” said Dr. Slamet-Loedin.

A new drought-screening facility and a protocol that mimics drought conditions in the lowland rice ecosystem have been established at IRRI to support, enhance, and expand the scientists’ work on developing a drought-tolerant crop. Unlike in the past, when GM drought-tolerant crops were mostly tested under artificial conditions using pots, the new facility allows scientists to better predict the crop’s yield, which previously was difficult to estimate.

“The new drought-screening facility can assess a bigger population of plants to take into account the possible variation in the effects of a

transgene on plant growth and yield performance,” Dr. Serraj said.

“Since IRRI is able to generate large numbers of transgenic events, it is more efficient to select and discard plants from the early steps, and keep only those showing promising responses,” he added. The rice plants can be robustly and comprehensively selected based on their phenotypes (physical attributes) and yield characteristics.

Rice farmers, however, are often not interested in the significance of having a drought-tolerant crop per se, since they are more concerned about whether the crop will produce a good and sustainable yield. An improved crop could survive drought stress, yet not produce a harvestable yield. So,

it is crucial for scientists to measure biomass accumulation (weight or total quantity of the plant) and yield performance that would result from modifying a gene.

“At an early step of the evaluation, we assess the impact of water deficit on plant growth and use nondestructive measurements to analyze crop performance,” Dr. Serraj said. “Plant phenology (the plant’s biological stage, that is, flowering, tillering, grain formation, etc.), growth, transpiration, canopy temperature, photosynthesis, leaf rolling, tillering ability, root biomass, and spikelet fertility are among the parameters to be measured for a large number of plants.”4

Moreover, Dr. Dong Jin Kang,

4 See Drought frontiers in rice: crop improvement for increased rainfed production, edited by R. Serraj, J. Bennett, and B. Hardy, 2008.


an IRRI postdoctoral fellow, explained (with reference to the samples in the drought-screening facility), “Plants that grow and produce well in this condition are selected as candidates for drought tolerance.” The facility also contains a flooded control plot of GM rice. Scientists compare the performance of the tested varieties under different conditions, to make sure that any selected material would be able to perform well under a variety of environments.

Dr. Slamet-Loedin said that the performance of GM rice is tested under drought and irrigated conditions to identify transgenic events in both conditions since drought may not occur in each planting season.

Sometimes, the transgenic plant performs better than the wild-type counterpart in drought conditions, but may yield less in normal conditions. This is a crucial factor and the reason candidate genes tested at IRRI are designed to be activated by drought (making the expression of the drought tolerance gene inducible by drought) to avoid any yield penalty in normal conditions.

To further ensure that no uncontrolled water will enter and

ruin these experiments, the scientists placed a 1-meter-deep physical barrier around the plots to prevent water seepage and percolation from adjacent flooded plots. The bed under the drought treatment, on the other hand, is equipped with a drainage system in which water gravitationally flows and gradually reduces the soil moisture of the topsoil.

Moreover, to maintain the precision of soil drying, scientists constantly monitor the amount of moisture and water tension in the soil, as well as the air temperature, relative humidity, and vapor-pressure deficit.

“Periods of managed water deficits are imposed with precise parameters of stress timing, duration, and severity,” Dr. Serraj explained. “Soil water is gradually reduced a few weeks after transplanting until the flowering and grain-setting stages, with soil moisture decreasing from fully saturated to minimal,” he added.

The facility also has a double-layered mesh on the ceiling and the surrounding divider to satisfy biosafety requirements. “Without protection, flying insects could enter the facility,“ Dr. Kang explained.

The drought-screening facility has been successful in creating realistic drought conditions. During the dry season of 2007, the first drought-

screening experiment using the facility was carried out to test the effects of a gene for drought tolerance provided by the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences. The scientists were pleased to observe that the data on yield under irrigated and drought conditions inside the drought-screening facility were similar to the ones obtained from non-transgenic field experiments at IRRI..

“We are making progress and we have already identified a few promising lines,” Dr. Serraj confidently stated. “These, however, will need further testing and validation. The drought-screening facility greatly helped in our transgenic research, so we plan to establish a similar and bigger facility in the future. This will allow us to test more gene candidates.”

Not leaving any stone unturned, IRRI scientists intend to find more ways to help farmers cope with drought. With advances in technology, things are definitely looking up for both scientists and farmers. Drought-tolerant varieties are developed and enhanced by the integration of GM approaches into breeding programs, as well as the by the use of this new facility that enhances precision and effectiveness in delivering new and improved genetic lines.

Nancy Sadiasa, Evelyn Liwanag, and Flor Montecillo, research technicians; Malen Estrada, assistant scientist (front row); Dr. Rachid Serraj, crop physiologist, and Dr. Dong Jin Kang, a postdoctoral fellow (at the back) at IRRI, inside the drought- screening facility.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens containing a binary vector is dispensed on immature embryos.

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