Category: Breeding

News to me. Something called Extension “is an interactive learning environment delivering the best, most researched knowledge from the smartest land-grant university minds across America.” And next week, on January 21st, you can take part in 2 webcast workshops. Here’s the blurb:

This webinar is two 90-minute sessions with a 30-minute break between sessions.
Breeding for Nutrition: Organic eaters want nutritious food, but some modern breeding programs may be increasing yields at the cost of nutrition. Learn about breeding programs working with classical breeding methods (non-GMO) to breed nutritionally superior crops.

Breeding for Microbial Interaction: Many beneficial soil microorganisms provide plants with access to nutrients, improve water uptake and even have the potential to suppress certain soil borne diseases. The ability to breed plants to optimize their interaction with the soil microbiology holds great potential to enhance organic farming systems. Hear about the latest studies in this important and expanding field.

Loads more at the Registration and further information page.

What we would have wanted is a simple, more concrete variety selection tool that could have guided us to a few specific options, and also provided us with enough variety performance information for making the final choice. The latter doesn’t seem to be easily accessible. On the other hand, informal feedback received from farmers and extension workers suggests that NSIC Rc 222 has performed well since it was released. So, we can also use this see with your own eyes or hear from others information for making our decision. Perhaps that is also what many farmers do.

That’s none other than Dr Achim Dobermann, the DDG of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), on the difficulties of finding the right variety to use in his attempt to grow a rice crop. ¹

Will he do anything about it, I wonder. And wouldn’t it have been nice to have grown a local landrace side-by-side with NSIC Rc 222 (aka Tubigan 18, aka IRRI 154). Great idea for a DDG to get so down and dirty, though. Not to mention blog about it.

Incidentally, NSIC Rc 222 (aka Tubigan 18, aka IRRI 154) has an, ahem, interesting history, which you can explore by typing any of its names into IRRI’s International Rice Information System.