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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
sides of Australian rice to make sure thatnew information and technologies reachfarmers.Ricecheck systemMr. Lacy has led the development ofthe highly regarded Ricecheck system,which uses data from hundreds of farmseach season, to keep growers up to dateon the most effective crop managementstrategies. He says that Ricecheck camefrom a tool he initially developed forwheat farmers.“I decided that the answers weneeded to improve crop managementwere not in research plots, but werealready in farmers’ fields,” explains Mr.Lacy. “So, I asked, ‘If some farmers aregetting fantastic yields, what are theydoing right?’ At that time, rice yieldshadn’t gone up for 20 years, so wedecided to set up a similar system in rice.”Mr. Lacy and several districtextension officers selected about 30farmers who were achieving high,moderate, and low yields. Theymonitored these closely over twoseasons, identifying the practices thatled to the greatest success. The system—which takes the form of a simple, shortbooklet filled with crop managementrecommendations and a “crop dataform”—evolves continually as eachyear farmers complete the forms andreturn them to Mr. Lacy, who updatesRicecheck for the next season.“We still have it running but, withthe drought, it’s effectively stoppedbecause so many farmers haven’t beengrowing rice,” he says. “At one stage,when there was a lot of rice around,we were getting up to 700 farmerrecords annually, which is an enormousdatabase.”Thus, the lack of water in theRiverina is hindering extension workas well as research progress. Like theresearchers, though, Mr. Lacy sees abright future.“As soon as this drought finishes—and it will—and we get back to morenormal seasons,” he says, “our researchand extension programs can get back tonormal and we can get back to makingthe same progress we were makingbefore.”RICECHECK, DEVELOPED by Yanco farming systemsexpert John Lacy, helps rice growers improve theirproduction by distilling the most successful practicesof the farmers themselves (right).WITH FUNDING for rice research linked to production,the 8-year drought has wreaked havoc at YancoAgricultural Institute, which currently cannot affordto run all of its lab equipment (below).DUST, SYMBOLIZING the drought of the last 8 years, swirls over one ofYanco Agricultural Institute’s experimental fields.Rice Today April-June 201023
Page 1 and 2: www.irri.orgWELCOME ALUMNIIRRI Home
Page 3 and 4: contentsEDITORIAL .................
Page 5 and 6: Hidden Treasure*The Chinese New Yea
Page 7 and 8: NEWS http://ricenews.irri.org 7and
Page 9 and 10: PEOPLETR AINING COURSES AT IRRIIntr
Page 11 and 12: Bearish? Where is the economy going
Page 13 and 14: ainRICEGROWERS' ASSOCIATION OF AUST
Page 15 and 16: COLEAMBALLY RICE farmer Lynne Stuck
Page 20 and 21: RACHELLE WARD, a Yanco cereal chemi
Page 24 and 25: Isagani Serrano24 Rice Today April-
Page 26 and 27: Mayon volcanoMAYON REVISITED:Courag
Page 28 and 29: Ketsana, which struck on 26 Septemb
Page 30 and 31: MAPSMapping genebank colThe genetic
Page 32 and 33: R. RAMANTODAY, INDIGENOUS African r
Page 34 and 35: Made for theTROPICSCHRIS QUINTANA (
Page 36 and 37: Operation20/20:Theclearpathtoasusta
Page 38 and 39: IRRI ARCHIVEIN 1990, Dr. McCouch an
Page 40 and 41: IRRI welcomesits alumni to a homeco
Page 42 and 43: COUNTRY HIGHLIGHT:IRRI in ThailandC
Page 44 and 45: RICE FACTSGlobal rice crisis hurts
Page 46 and 47: grain of truthLearning lessons from
Page 48: 8-12 November 2010Vietnam National

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