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  Yahoo News 1 Jun 06
Rice research in next 10 years to focus on global warming, drought

MANILA (AFP) - Overcoming climate change and drought will be the main focus of efforts to boost rice yields in the next 10 years, the International Rice Research Institute said.

The Philippines-based IRRI is committed to "very forward looking projects that, if successful, will revolutionize agriculture for future generations," director-general Robert Zeigler said in an annual report.

"We look to adopt a major project on climate change that will surely transform the way rice is grown and bred." He said the institute would lay out the plan in detail later this month.

"Likewise, a project on developing C4 rice will, if successful, create a rice plant that is able to withstand higher temperatures, use nitrogen fertilizer and water more efficiently, and yield 30 percent more with the same inputs," Zeigler said.

IRRI scientists said last year that emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, were likely to double over time and drive rice yields down by 0.15 tonnes per hectare (2.47 acres) in 50 years.

As part of the institute's efforts to protect the environment, "IRRI is also progressing in developing rice lines that harbor ... (nitrogen)-fixing bacteria that will greatly reduce the plant's need for ... applied nitrogen fertilizer," Zeigler said.

"Finally, we will work to develop drought-tolerant rice for rainfed and water-limited irrigated environments," Zeigler said.

"We believe that within 10 years we will have rice lines in the field that will produce well in the increasingly water-limited environments of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa."

Zeigler said IRRI, based in Los Banos town south of Manila, is striving to get donors to support these projects, for which seed money from the institution's strategic reserves would be used. He added "there is little reason to expect" that large funding cuts from key donors Japan and the United States "will be restored in 2006".
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