Now, taste a new kind of rice
Date: 2.3.2006
When many farmers in Chennai and other districts were struggling hard to come out of the consequences of the unprecedented rains that lashed the State last year, C Ramachandra Naidu, a farmer of Alathur village in Kancheepuram district, had a smile on his face.
The reason was J-18 samba rice variety, which was planted in the 15 acres of field owned by C Ramachandra Naidu, that made him face the vagaries of nature.
The new-variety paddy, which was brought down from The Phillipines and was genetically modified to suit the Indian conditions at the J Farm sponsored by TAFE, at Kelambakkam, was able to sustain itself in water for over a month.
Sharing his experiences with News Today, C Ramachandra Naidu Naidu said the right decision to choose the new variety had saved him from a huge loss.
' My hopes were shattered when the water stagnated in the field for a month. I thought nothing would be left as in many other fields. But to my surprise, the paddy crops were strong even after 45 days of floods', said Ramachandra.
'I never supplied any manure to the crops. It grew on its own and could yield around 150 quintals of rice (15,000 Kg). There would have been more yield, if there was not such heavy rains', he said.
Speaking to News Today about the new variety, S S Nagarajan, vice president, Agriculture Research, and chief scientist of J Farm, said the new paddy variety was an achievement in itself, as it could resist the vagaries of nature and could be cultivated organically, keeping the fertility of the soil intact. Elucidating more on the advantage of organic paddy, Nagarajan said the cultivation of the paddy was cheaper to the farmers as it could fetch them a net profit of Rs 5000 per acre, when compared to the other high-yielding varieties.
He added that the J 18 variety could be cultivated as transplanted crop and raised as a semi-dry crop in the Kharif season, which can benefit the farmers living in semi-arid areas like Kancheepuram, Ramnad district and all the other coastal areas. 'Except the alkaline soil, the crop can be grown anywhere', he said.
Pointing at the growth of the new variety in the field of C Ramachandra Naidu Naidu, Nagarajan claimed that the variety could yield more than 75 kgs of yield per acre within a period of five to six months. And it was capable to give more yield with time as the fertility increases with use of natural manure and other organic substances.
Briefing on how the inorganic fertilisers affect the soil, Nagarajan said though chemical fertilisers could help at the earlier stages, they affect the soil by turning it acidic, and in arid places, salty. The chemicals also disturb the soil ecology and kill microbes, insects and worms that keep soil healthy.
With the use of J 18, the application of inorganic fertilisers can be cut down, which is also good for health as over use of inorganic fertilisers in fields leads to various diseases among people.
He added the people could eat more pure and tasty rice which was free and uncontaminated with inorganic substances, with the use of the new variety of rice.
Biotechnology research provides look into future
A peek into the future of biotechnology was provided at the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association conference.
Steve Padgett, chief agriculture researcher at Monsanto, presented a “What’s Coming Next in the Biotech Pipeline?” during the conference.
Available to producers only in the last couple of years, Padgett said Roundup Ready 2 corn and YieldGard Rootworm corn have provided success.
“The Roundup Ready 2 corn is doing very well. We had up to 22 million acres planted in the U.S. in 2005. It demonstrated yield improvement,” Padgett said. “This has really turned into a premier weed control system. We see its worldwide market increasing significantly.”
YieldGard Rootworm corn recently earned the honors of being one of the top 100 inventions in 2005.
“It usage doubled to about four to four and one-half million acres in 2005. It provides very consistent control, especially in years like last year,” Padgett said.
He added it also showed a yield advantage of 10 to 20 bushels over competing germplasm with insecticide.
“There is a real intense effort at Monsanto of putting together stacks that we’ll need in the market place,” Padgett said. “We’re really moving toward a very detailed and executed plan for delivering all of the traits that the customer needs in a single seed so that the choice of what trait to use will be here in that single seed.”
Padgett went onto note some of the new traits that are being developed. Research in the Roundup Ready 2 soybeans has been positive, he said.
“We’re seeing up to a five-bushel yield improvement compared to Roundup Ready soybeans out there today. We are working very, very diligently to get this trait into all germplasm for soybeans,” he said.
“Another is dicamba resistance in soybeans. It’s really a great weed control option. This will come in stacked with the second generation Roundup Ready soybeans, and is in the early development stage.”
Ways to battle against soybean rust also are being investigated at Monsanto.
“We found a very interesting result. When we were able to spray Roundup Ready over the top of soybean plants later in the season and challenge them with rust, we actually see a reduction of rust incidents with Roundup treatment,” Padgett said.
“This is an off-label application, which we can’t recommend right now, but this is a real phenomena. We’re excited about exploring the potential of developing rust mitigation procedures using Roundup, especially Roundup Ready 2 soybeans where we can spray higher and later in the year. This is not labeled for rust control now, but an exciting result.”
Research for genes to increase yields continues at Monsanto.
“Yield gene is kind of the holy grail of biotech. We’ve jumped into early development of looking at the yield gene,” Padgett e explained.
Eventually, the plan is to place Roundup Ready 2 soybeans, dicamba-resistant soybeans and high-yield soybeans all in on single seed.
“That is the plan we’re executing in the lab,” Padgett said.
On the corn side, Padgett said a new product soon to enter the market is YieldGard second-generation corn borer. “This one has two BT genes in the second generation corn borer. Since we have two modes of action present there, we have the ability to enhance insect management because the insect will have less of a chance of getting resistance if you have two modes of action in there,” he said.
Other seed research includes such areas as drought tolerance and improved water utilization, improved nitrogen utilization, and developments of seed to better benefit processors and consumers.
Padgett also provided unique insight into research and development.
Padgett has been with Monsanto for 21 years and said the company now focuses 100 percent in the area of agriculture, which was not the case when he started there.
The company released its first biotech trait in the form of Roundup Ready soybeans in 1996. By 2004, global sales for seeds and traits reached $3 billion.
He said bringing together biotech and breeding is something uniquely done by Monsanto.
“When we go out and look for improved seeds, we’re looking whether we can get it through breeding. If we can get this trait through breeding, we’re going to absolutely go with the breeding side of things so there are not the regulations as there is for biotech,” he said.
“There are some traits out there that you can’t get by breeding. In those cases, we’ll go with the biotech approach. But, even if we’re doing biotechnology on a trait, it’s linked up with breeding all through the cycle.”
Padgett said the acceptance of biotechnology continues to grow.
“You can see that the adoption of the biotech technology has been outstanding. Overall, 200 million acres or so were forecasted for (biotech seed planting) in 2005,” he said.
“Based on the estimates that we see the biotech acreage increasing to 350 million acres worldwide by 2010. I think what we can see is the benefits are there — economic benefits, environmental benefits, solid record of safety.”
"Source":[ http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&doc_id=12235&start=11&control=215&page_start=1&page_nr=101&pg=1].
Related articles
Scientists find rice gene for grain size and yield - Chinese scientists have identified and cloned a rice gene that influences rice grain weight and yield, which could help scientists develop higher yielding varieties of the world's most important food crop (13.4.2007)
Gene sequence dataset for rice developed - U (19.3.2007)
