An adventure in applied science - IRRI books - International Rice ...

Chapter 4Early Researchand training resultIRRI had named its first two varieties, the seed of IR8 had been widelydistributed, and the structure of the research program had been well establishedby the end of 1967. That provides a cutoff date for discussion of the earlyresults of the Institute’s program. This chapter covers the important advancesmade during 1962-67.Although teamwork had been encouraged at IRRI from the start, during theearly years the Institute was organized solely on a departmental basis. Therefore,except for the section on international activities, the achievements arereported by departments as they existed in 1967.VARIETAL IMPROVEMENTIn 1962, Jennings, Beachell, Chang, and the IRRI administrators agreed that theInstitute’s rice breeding program should be directed toward developingvarieties that were short, stiff-strawed, and fertilizer responsive, that werephotoperiod insensitive and thus could be early maturing, and that wereresistant to, or at least tolerant of, attack by major insects and diseases. Otherrefinements were added later as more became known about the needs offarmers and the preferences of consumers, and as the plant physiologists andagronomists expanded their knowledge about the relationships between plantmorphology and yield potential.The work in varietal improvement can be divided into the worldgermplasm collection, various basic studies, the breeding program, and thedistribution of seed from IRRI’s successful crosses.The world germplasm collectionObviously, it was necessary to have a large and diverse germplasm collectionin order to conduct a successful rice breeding program. Jennings started thecollection as soon as he arrived in October 1961. He wrote 160 letters requestingseed and received samples from about half of those contacts. A large portionof the early accessions came from the sizable collections of the US. Departmentof Agriculture, the FAO indica-japonica sets, the substantial collection atHiratsuka, Japan, and the materials available from Taiwan. By the end of 1962,IRRI’s accessions numbered 6,967 which came from 73 countries or territories.From the outset, each of the accessions that IRRI obtained was grown in thewet and dry seasons and about 50 different characters, most of them morphological,were recorded. Samples (500g each) were placed in storage at low temperatureand humidity. Because IRRI could process only about 2,000 acces-