SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ – FLOODWATERS, often the bane of rice farming in low-lying areas, will no longer worry farmers again. Their plants will certainly survive this time.
Take the case of a number of farmers in San Antonio, Nueva Ecija who, for years, were having big worries as their efforts in rice farming often resulted in big losses. In just few days then of flooded conditions, their plants wilt and eventually die.
Or if some of the plants survive, the expected big harvest is normally drastically reduced.
This time, they don’t worry anymore if their plants are submerged for a number of days. They know that their plants will survive. Even if the water will stay deep for ten or more days, they are aware that the plants will grow vigorously again.
“They are using seeds of submergence-tolerant rice varieties,” Dr. Nenita Desamero, chief of the Plant Breeding Division of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) here, said.
Her explanation was sought in the heels of recent flash floods in the southern part of Nueva Ecija due to heavy rains spawned by a number of tropical depressions.
Generally, the ordinary rice plants die after they are submerged in the field for three to five days.
“There are now a number of farmers in San Antonio who are planting the submergence varieties of their choice for the wet season cropping,” Desamero said. “Many of them were not planting rice during the wet season in the past,” she added.
About 180 farmers in San Antonio town, a low-lying municipality in the southwestern part of Nueva Ecija, planted the submergence-tolerant varieties this main cropping season.
They participated in the adaptation and acceptability trials being conducted by PhilRice in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Five of those who participated in the trials planted at least two hectares for their selected submergence-tolerant varieties while the rest, who were given free seeds, were using 500 sq. m. to 2,000 sq. m. of their farm.
“Their rice plants survived two flood situations,” Desamero said. “We are sure that their plants survived and they were able to harvest relatively bigger yield this time,” she added.
She said there are four submergence-tolerant varieties which have been developed thru years of research and development and are now being field-tested nationwide.
Four varieties
The four submergence-tolerant varieties are IR-64 Sub 1, PSB RC68 Sub 1, Swarna Sub 1, and Sambha Mahsori Sub 1. The last two are Indian varieties and the others are Philippine-bred.
Desamero said the development of these submergence-tolerant varieties were products of at least 20 years of research and development by Irri scientists.
The PhilRice, she added, is collaborating with Irri for dissemination and further improvement of the traits of the four varieties. It is also developing the package of technology for the commercial production of these varieties through the farmers’ help.
“San Antonio is perfect for the field-testing of the varieties as majority of their 8,000 hectares of farmland are not used during the wet season because of the usual floods that come after the downpours,” Desamero said.
The field-testing started in 2007 with a few farmers as participants. Some other farmers, who saw the crop and harvest of those who participated in the field-testing, bought some seeds and went on to produce the commercial seeds.
She said that aside from the two to five kilograms of free seeds distributed recently, some farmers bought seeds from enterprising seed growers who produced the seeds last dry season cropping.
Desamero said that some farmers they visited in San Antonio recently exuded elation about the coming out of these new rice varieties. They said they are now able to plant rice during wet season without fearing that they would be destroyed by floodwaters.
“In our experiment, we found out that these varieties can still recover and grow very well even after 14 days of submergence depending on the quality of the flood water,” Desamero said.
She said if the water is murky and turbid, the rice plants can tolerate submergence for only up to ten days.
Bonanza for
farmers, supply
Desamero said there are a potential 300,000 hectares of farmland in the country which are flood-prone. They can now use these varieties for these lands which are always devastated by floods during the wet season.
The harvest that can be expected is one to two tons higher than when the rice plants are under stress, she said.
“We are talking here of a potential near zero harvest to a harvest of three to four tons per hectare when they use these varieties. That’s a big bonanza for the farmers and for the additional rice supply in the market,” she said.
Desamero added that the farmers using these varieties will have less input expense as the total fertilizer usage will be less. The farmlands have much more nutrients because of the “banlik” (silt) brought by the floods, she said.
Similar field-testing is being conducted by the PhilRice stations in 16 sites in the different regions in the country for these varieties.
“Expect several hundred or thousand hectares of flood-prone farmlands to be planted to these varieties next wet season cropping season,” Desamero said.
She also said that the seeds of these submergence-tolerant varieties may not be a problem in the future. She said several enterprising farmers will certainly produce the seeds to meet the demand for them.
Several thousand hectares of lands in Central Luzon, it was learned, were not usually planted to rice during the wet season as they proved unproductive due to the destruction of the plants by series of floods that usually occur during the rainy days. As such, the farmers usually engage in some other enterprises, like fishing or presenting themselves as agricultural laborers for some of their lucky counterparts whose lands are not affected by floods.
This coming wet season cropping, they can expect their flood-prone areas to be productive due to the availability of submergence-tolerant rice varieties.
