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JOHN LACY, industry leader (rice farming systems)at Yanco Agricultural Institute, helps to link theRiverina region’s rice farmers with the latestresearch.Dr. Ward notes that this type ofinformation informs her work on grainquality. One of her key roles is to supplygrain quality data on breeding lines tothe breeders.“The research is largelyaimed at expanding the scope of thequality analysis as well as providingsuch data for earlier gene rations of thebreeding process,” she says. “Ultimately,this work will fast-track the releaseof new varieties that have certainagronomic benefits, such as coldtolerance, but are also ready forconsumers.”Dr. Reinke pays tribute to hispredecessor, Dr. Lewin, who, he says,maintained enough diversity in the Yancobreeding program to allow as rapid aresponse as possible to new challenges.“We’ve strived to have a mix ofquality types so that at any point, whensome new feature is communicated tous, we can identify material that alreadyexists, and we can leap in and test it,”says Dr. Reinke. “That circumvents this10-year lag phase from making the firstcross all the way through to release.”Less water, more riceBy now, it is probably clear that onethread in particular runs through theentire tapestry of rice in Australia: water.Specifically, using less of it to grow morerice.“Our holy grail in terms of wateruseefficiency is to be able to use 10megaliters of water per hectare,” saysRuth Wade, executive director of theRicegrowers’ Association of Australia,a voluntary organization made up ofcurrent and retired rice growers (seeA sunburned grain on pages 12-17).“We were on a nice trajectory in thatdirection. Before the drought, it wasabout 12 megaliters, but that’s slowedbecause now it’s taking a lot of water towet up the system. The global average isaround 15–20 megaliters. We aspire toconsistently being way ahead of anybodyelse.”Unsurprisingly, much of Yancoagronomist Geoff Beecher’s researchdraws on the same theme. One of his keyroles in more than 20 years at Yanco hasbeen in determining land that is suitablefor rice production. In particular, thismeans relatively impermeable heavyclay soils that minimize seepage intowater tables. These days, Australian ricegrowers are permitted to grow rice onsuitable soil only. Further, individualfarmers cannot grow rice on more than30% of their suitable land.More recently, Mr. Beecher hasbeen investigating the way that thespatial layout of rice land affects waterproductivity.“In any rice field, we get areasthat are highly productive and areasthat aren’t so productive,” he says. “Wethought that productivity might havebeen related to soil type but really it’scome back to cut and fill.”Cutting and filling land to make itlevel have been carried out for decadesand, over that time, cutting depth hasgradually increased. Around 20 yearsago, 10 centimeters would have beenconsidered a big cut; now, some farmersmake half-meter cuts.“Now you’ve got huge differencesin fertility between cut and filled areas,”says Dr. Beecher. “If you have a naturaltopsoil layer with reasonable organiccarbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus levels,and you come in and chop it down 400millimeters, you create an area that’snot a very nice growing environment.We’re working on how we can managethe problems caused by these really bigcuts.”Switching cropsMr. Beecher is also working on ways ofsetting up a rice field that allow farmersto switch between crops without havingto make major changes.“We might be looking at a banklesschannel with raised beds inside it and aterraced layout,” he says, “which meansthat a farmer could leave the beds inplace after a rice crop and then grow aseries of upland crops in rotation withoutchanging the layout. So, you can increasecropping intensity and maximize wateruse at the same time.”John Lacy is industry leader (ricefarming systems) at Yanco. He acts as thelink between the research and extension22Rice Today April-June 2010