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

Developing and staffing the program 61department would dominate the conversation so thoroughly that Wortmanwould have no real opportunity to get to know the candidate. This Wortmandid and felt that Pathak could head IRRI’s entomology program most satisfactorily,although he was only 28 years old at the time. Pathak had obtained hisPh D degree at Kansas State University under the direction of Reginald H.Painter, a world authority on controlling insects by developing resistant plantvarieties. In India, Pathak was working with sorghum stemborers, which gavehim a good background for work with the rice stem borers, a group ofdevastating insects in the rice fields of the tropics and subtropics.Pathak was attracted by IRRI’s program and arrangements were made tobring him to the Philippines for an interview in December 1961. He was offeredthe post of entomologist in the Plant Protection Department, and he and hisfamily arrived in the Philippines in April 1962. Pathak developed a first-classresearch program. He headed the Entomology Department from its creation in1964 and in 1974 was promoted to the position of assistant director of Research.Later, his title was changed to director, Research Coordination. His successoras head of the Entomology Department was Elvis A. Heinrichs, who is still atIRRI.By 1968, IRRI’s entomological program had become a busy and productiveone. Pathak asked that an associate entomologist be added to study populationdynamics and insect ecology. It so happened that IRRI at the time wasapproaching the Canadian Government for funding, so the Institute includedin its proposal an additional entomologist. IRRI was encouraged by theCanadian director in the Asian Development Bank (who was handling arrangementson the Philippine end) to proceed with hiring the required peopleand purchase of equipment. In January 1969, I made a tour of Canada seekingqualified scientists. Among those interviewed was a young graduate studentat MacDonald College of McGill University by the name of V. Arnold Dyck. Asill luck would have it, the Canadian grant did not materialize (for reasonsexplained in Chapter 5) and IRRI had to be helped out financially by the Fordand Rockefeller Foundations. IRRI hired Dyck after he had finished hisgraduate study and been awarded his Ph D degree. He joined the IRRI staff inJune 1970 and is still there.The only other addition to the senior staff in entomology has been James A.Litsinger who joined the Department of Entomology in 1974 to work exclusivelyon the insect control problems of the Cropping Systems Program.PLANT PHYSIOLOGYThe Japanese had made great progress in investigations of the physiology ofthe rice plant, including studies of photosynthesis, the effect of plant type ongrowth and yield, and detailed examinations of the mineral nutrition of rice.Such research, however, had been almost exclusively in the temperate zoneand little was known about the physiological processes of indica rice varietiesin the tropics or subtropics. Accordingly, IRRI placed a plant physiologist onits early list of scientists to be added to the staff.