Comments on: Is hybrid rice the answer?

By: Glenn

Glenn — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:36:24 +0000

Thank you for your comments Johnson. Yes one of the main constraints for rice production in SS Africa is the production management that’s why high yielding varieties including hybrid rice have difficulty is spreading. We at IRRI and WARDA are working more on other technologies in SSA than hybrid rice which can be shown in our websites. We are just showing this first hybrid rice testing in Nigeria and it demonstrated its potential. The methodology of same crop management means that the nonhybrid was treated same way as the hybrids in term of cultural practices for us to compare their yields. The actual harvested area was 9.6 meter square after discarding the border rows and the LSD5% is 0.68t/ha with cv of 9.2. These technical information were not shown in this article but it will be shown in the scientific publication soon. This is the first experiment we have done on hybrid rice in SSA and we have not done any advocacy yet. In summary, IRRI and WARDA demonstrated that hybrid rice has the potential in SSA and this may justify the start of hybrid rice research in SSA along with other appropriate technology. Yes it’s like a horse race, if we will not start now and wait for all things to be in place then we will be late.

By: Johnson

Johnson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:21:16 +0000

I like the horserace metaphor but doubt that one should speak about a Green Revolution in Africa. From my school days I learned that genetic improvement works best when other production and management factors be it soil-fertility, crop-rotation, water-managements are in place. The mention of “under same crop management” in a research station is too simple an explanation of variable factors including human bias. Real field conditions may give a complete different result. There’s also no mention of the actual size of each field planted with a variety and I doubt the generalizations to tons/ha, etc. The absence of real statistics, especially related to variability and significance give me the impression of too much advocacy for hybrid rice based on experiences in Asia rather than applying something new to the particulars of Africa. Despite my critical review of your article and promotion of technology I would like to say that I admire the work done by Centers such as ILRI, IITA and Warda and that I strongly believe in research based development as a panacea to underlying, long-term problems. I hope that agricultural research remains focussed on longer term rather than shorter term donor driven solutions.