CropsResearchers mapped 210 rare haplotypes linked to rice yield, grain quality and stress tolerance, and one of them, DEP1-H2, raised yields by up to 9.87% when bred into the Indian variety Swarna.
CropsAt a summit in Bhubaneswar, five buyers and five farmer producer organisations agreed deals for about 1,000 tonnes of low-GI, high-protein and pigmented rice, and the state plans to expand the crop from 1,200 to 10,000 hectares.
AgrotechThe EFFECT project of IRRI and the Philippine DA-BAR uses climate, soil and terrain data to map crop suitability and profiles local innovations in Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and Eastern Visayas.
A USD 14.95 million centre funded by KOICA at the University of the Philippines Los Baños gives breeders genomics and bioinformatics tools to develop rice and other crops adapted to drought, flooding and disease.
CropsThe BBSRC-funded Temp-Resist Rice project will search traditional varieties and wild relatives for traits that protect pollen and grain formation at high temperatures.
CropsThe BBSRC-backed Temp-Resist Rice project will search traditional varieties and wild relatives for heat-tolerance traits, focusing on pollen failure at flowering.
With machine composting and training through an IRRI-backed project, New Green Farm Cooperative in the Mekong Delta now earns from straw it once burned and has cut chemical nitrogen use by 40%.
The first phase of the BASF-IRRI collaboration launched in 2024 showed that alternate wetting and drying, enabled through direct-seeded rice, cuts methane and water use without losing yield; the next phase looks at soil carbon and nitrogen and at biochar, with Philippine trials meant to inform China
Two hundred Cambodian farmers who moved from hand broadcasting to mechanised direct seeding harvested 0.9 tonnes more rice a hectare and earned over USD 200 more, while halving their seed rate.
A seeder that places rice seed 1-2 mm deep and fertiliser 3-4 cm below it has been certified as a national technical advance in Vietnam after pilots in eight Mekong Delta provinces cut seed rates by up to 65 per cent.
IRRI and CIP brought farmers, cooperatives, extension staff and officials together in Can Tho to work out how women and smallholders can be included in precision nutrient management under Vietnam's One Million Hectares rice programme.
Tien Thuan cooperative in Can Tho now makes 12 to 15 tonnes of organic fertiliser a month and grows mushrooms on the straw it used to burn, adding USD 50 to 70 a hectare over burning or selling the loose material.
At a workshop in Can Tho, IRRI and CIP found that women manage household finances in 80 per cent of the farms represented, yet fertiliser training has traditionally invited only one household member, usually the husband.
