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

82 History of the International Rice Research InstituteAn IRRI staff meetingin 1964. From left toright: De Datta, Ramos,MacRae, Ling, lida, Ou,Tanaka, McClung,Pathak, Salacup,Johnson, Chandler,Beachell,Ponnamperuma,Byrnes, Moomaw,Ruttan, Oñate,Bradfield, Golden,Vergara, Juliano,Manalo.onward, these internal review meetings were held annually. This sessioncontinues today and in the opinion of many is the most important regularlyoccurring event at IRRI. Here the scientist can report what he has achievedduring the past year and what he plans to do next. The meetings are fullyattended and there is always lively and frank discussion among the participants.This chapter tends to suggest that IRRI had a group of impeccable expertsworking in absolute harmony and without error, but such of course was not thecase. In every department (administration being no exception), there wasroom for improvement — and, fortunately, the means of bringing it about.The research program required careful watching. At times, the Institutewould decide that a project was not paying off and should be abandoned foranother that would be more productive. The quality of every project wascontinually monitored, especially the field experiments. Rat fences had to bemaintained properly, birds had to be kept out of the plots, and yield levels hadto be high. Because IRRI scientists had all necessary facilities at hand, therecould be no excuse for low yields (other than on the control plots in fertilizer,insect, and disease experiments), except when typhoons occurred near harvesttime.