The first generation of rice scientists might be no more; probably only one or two of the second generation still survive. But for the doyens of rice research, Tuesday was special as the farm varsity here commenced the four-day celebration of ‘100 years of rice research' to commemorate the completion of 100 years of its ‘Paddy Breeding Station'.
To start off the celebrations scientists from over nine countries met here to participate in discussions on rice research. There were many retired experts from the scientific community who had travelled long distances to be present at the event.
Scientists recalled the inception of the first rice research centre in the country, in Coimbatore in 1912, when the British administrators, in a bid to tackle hunger and famine initiated research in agriculture and posted Mr R. Parnell, a Government Economic Botanist, here to carry out research on rice. Thus the Paddy Breeding Station came into existence, said Dr Swapan K. Datta, Deputy Director-General (Crop Science) at ICAR, New Delhi.
Though established in 1912, the first official rice variety GEB 24 — a fine grain — was released nine years later, in 1921, and this served as the initial breeding material for all IRRI (International Rice Research Institute, Philippines) varieties. GEB 24 can, in a sense, be called the ‘mother' of all improved rice varieties in the world!
It is the parent of ADT-27 and, in the last 100 years, a number of varieties have been released, including the blast-resistant Co4 and Co25, inter-specific cross-derivative Co31, high-yielding, long-duration Co40 and the salt-tolerant Co43.
Hybrid cultivation
Rice research has since come a long way, said the experts. In a chat with Business Line , Dr Datta stressed the need for allocation of more funds towards research and development. “It takes 10 years to commercialise a variety; if we are not focused on our research efforts, India will stand to lose ownership. Our R&D spend on hybrid rice is insufficient,” he said, adding how the Japanese were focused on basic science and research and the Chinese commercialised hybrid rice.
Hybrid rice cultivation is being taken up only on 1.3 million hectares in India, whereas it is grown over 17 million hectares in China.
Chinese productivity is also high, at 6.6 tonnes/hectare vis-à-vis the Indian productivity level of 2.2 tonnes/ hectare. The reason for the low productivity is lack of funds being pumped into R&D and possibly the diversified rice consumption habits prevalent here.