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

60 History of the International Rice Research Instituteof the rice plant since G.W. Padwick’s Manual of Rice Disease appeared in 1950.(Both books were published by the Commonwealth Mycological Institute ofKew, England.)Ou gave distinguished leadership to IRRI’s plant pathology program untilhe reached retirement age. In 1978, Jerry Pat Crill replaced him.When IRRI was planning its research program in 1960-61, the statementmade at a Rice Working Party meeting of the International Rice Commissionof FAO was that viral diseases of rice were of minor importance and posed nothreat to the industry. However, as early as 1962, IRRI’s experimental plotswere seriously affected by two viral diseases. The problem became so acute in1963 that the Institute decided it should add a staff member who would devotefull time to the study of rice viral diseases and their control.The first step in this direction was to arrange for Dr. Tosi Take Iida, aprominent rice virologist from Japan, to spend a year as a visiting scientist atIRRI not only to conduct research on the rice viral diseases of tropical Asia butto help IRRI develop a sound virus research program. Iida arrived in January1964 and stayed for one year. By the time he left, IRRI had hired Dr. Keh ChiLing as permanent virologist. Ling had received his Ph D at the University ofWisconsin and at the time was plant pathologist at the Taiwan Sugar ResearchInstitute. 2Rice is not only severely attacked by fungal and viral diseases but bybacterial diseases as well. Although Ou and his staff were working on the mostimportant of the bacterial diseases, bacterial blight, it was decided in 1972 toadd a staff member to devote full time to those diseases. It so happened thatIRRI was ending its program with the All-India Coordinated Rice ImprovementProject, and Harold E. Kauffman, who had served as a pathologist there,was transferfed to IRRI’s headquarters in the Philippines. He worked onbacterial diseases until 1975 when he was asked to assume leadership of IRRI’sInternational Rice Testing Program. To replace him as a specialist in bacterialdiseases of rice, Twng-Wah Mew, then a plant pathologist at the AsianVegetable Research and Development Center in Taiwan, was appointed to theposition as associate pathologist.Thus, IRRI eventually had three senior pathologists, one to work on fungaldiseases, another on viral diseases, and a third on bacterial diseases.The search for an entomologist began in 1961. IRRI wanted a true economicentomologist, one who could pursue studies of insect control not only throughthe use of insecticides but by developing varietal resistance in cooperationwith the Varietal Improvement Department. At that time, practical entomologistswere as scarce as soil microbiologists.When Wortman visited India in 1961, Guy B. Baird of the RockefellerFoundation office in New Delhi told him of an impressive young entomologistat the Indian Agricultural Research Institute by the name of Mano D. Pathak.Baird suggested that Wortman interview Pathak away from his laboratorywhere (in the academic tradition of the Old World) the senior members of the2 Ling died at IRRI on 12 February 1982 at the age of 57.