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Drive 60 kilometers southof Manila and you willfind a farm where, on anygiven day, more than 300

people are hard at work. Mechanicsfix machinery, rat catchers laytraps, laborers transplant seedlings,workers dig irrigation channels anything you might expect tofind on a commercial rice farm.

But this is no ordinarypiece of land.

Occupying nearly 200 hectares,the International Rice ResearchInstitute (IRRI) Experiment Station,known simply as the farm, is whereIRRI scientists take their research outof the lab and into the wider world.

The farm reveals the truth ofour research, says Joe Rickman,head of the Experiment Station.We can develop new technologiesand breed new varieties, but if wedont test them in the field, and if

we dont understand large-scaleproblems and farm managementissues, then weve failed.

Lowland flooded rice fieldsmake up 160 hectares and there

are some 40 hectares of uplandrice fields. The farm also featuresnearly 50 greenhouses, glasshousesand screenhouses, as well as a ricemill and a controlled-environmentlaboratory known as a phytotron.

So, what kind of researchtakes place on this prized realestate? Plant breeders, who usejust less than half of the field area,are the biggest customers. IRRIsEntomology and Plant Pathology

Division, Genetic Resources Center,and Crop, Soil and Water SciencesDivision each use less than 10%.The Experiment Station uses theremainder to produce seeds and rice.

In plant breeding, we look forrare plants, explains Dave Mackill,head of IRRIs Plant Breeding,Genetics and BiotechnologyDivision. We take several differentstrains and breed them together toproduce new ones. Out of a million

A Day on the

by Leharne Fountain

photography by Ariel Javellana

Home to research that helps feed the worlds poor, 200 hectares of landin the northern Philippines might just be Asias most valuable real estate

JOE RICKMAN, head of theIRRI Experiment Station,contemplates the institutesfarm. Across a field (above),sit protective screenhouses.

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rice plants produced this way, onlya relative handful will have thecharacteristics that we want.

Dr. Mackill points out thatplant breeding is partly a numbersgame the more plants you cantest, the greater your chances ofidentifying those that have thefeatures youre looking for. Butdealing with such large numbers ofplants obviously requires space.

More space means more plants,

says Dr. Mackill, and that meansa greater chance of success. Thatswhy the IRRI farm is so important.

Dr. Mackill points out thatalthough we often dont knowprecisely which genes give rise todesired traits, they are expressedphysically in the growing rice plants:Thats the basis of our breedingtrials. We visually inspect the plants,and select the ones that show thequalities were seeking. After several

generations, we end up with a selectgroup of several hundred, whichwe then grow in yield trials.

Take the quest for resistanceto the rice disease bacterial blight.Its very obvious which plants areinfected and which ones arent,says Dr. Mackill. We select theplants that show some resistanceto the disease and grow them inthe next generation of the trial.

Millions of plantsBreeding trials are a seriousinvestment of time and resources.Each may run for several generations,spanning periods of up to 5 years.Millions of plants can be sown onmore than 60 hectares in each ofthe wet and dry seasons every year.The farm must provide more thanjust space, too. It also providesdifferent environments nutrient-deficient soils, for example where

varieties are tested for toleranceof environmental stresses.

But the farms value reaches farbeyond merely providing space forresearch. IRRIs International RiceGenebank holds in trust for humanitynearly 107,000 cultivated and wildvarieties of rice. It is the worldsmost comprehensive repositoryof rice germplasm (seeds and thegenetic material they contain).

This agricultural vault holds

seeds that can help save lives, ashappened when Cambodian seedscollected before the devastation ofthe 1970s were used to reestablishthe countrys ruined rice industryand help end mass starvation.Furthermore, the genebank is asource of genes that carry traits thatcan be harnessed to improve riceplants from tolerance of climaticextremes of cold, heat and drought tosurvival in nutrient-poor soils, to pest

RKERS HARVEST seeds among a mosaic oferent varieties grown for the Genebank;ntinuing clockwise) Soccie Almazan, curatorwild rice species, inspects wild rice in theenhouse; wild rice variety Oryza longis-inata is the source of a gene that confersstance to bacterial blight; the IRRI rice mill.

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and disease resistance. And scientistsaccess the genebank to tap into otherqualities, such as nutritional value,flavor and the physical appearance

of rice grains. For all that, though,where does the farm fit in?

The genebank isnt static,explains Pola de Guzman,the genebanks curator. Weperiodically test the seeds and anyvarieties that fall below a certaingermination rate we plant out onthe farm to harvest new seeds.

Multiplying genebank seedon the farm is crucial, she says,not only to ensure the viability ofthe current collection, but also tosatisfy international seed requests,and to grow and characterizenewly acquired varieties.

We get requests for seeds fromscientists and farmers all aroundthe world, explains Ms. de Guzman.And, as was the case for Cambodia,we supply seeds to countriesthat have lost their own storesthrough war or natural disaster.

Indeed, the genebank allowedIRRI to supply Malaysia and Sri

Lanka with the seed of salt-tolerantrice varieties that will grow in areasdevastated by last Decemberstragic tsunami (seeNews, page 6).

In any given season, thousandsof different varieties from thegenebank will be grown on the IRRIfarm. Growing so many differenttypes of rice, side by side, brings itsown challenges. Because such largenumbers of varieties are planted,those that need similar growing

conditions, or have similar maturityperiods, are grouped together toease management and minimizethe chance of mix-ups. Harvesting

needs to be timed for optimumseed-storage potential. The farmalso has a quarantine area, whereall newly acquired seeds are grown,to ensure that the seed produceshealthy plants and, if it is harboringdisease, doesnt infect other plants.

Mini-hospitalServing as a mini-hospital insidethe IRRI farm complex is thescreenhouse facility. This is whereresearchers grow varieties that aresensitive to an open-fieldenvironment, including wild species,which tend to be more difficult togrow than cultivated varieties.

We really baby them, saysSoccie Almazan, curator of the wildspecies. Different wild specieshave very different needs. Someneed partial shading and specialsoils because they grow in forests;others grow well in full sunlight.

PLANT BREEDER Dave Mackill checks on breeding trials while a tractor levels a field using laser-levelingtechnology (bottom).

Some need to be submergedbecause theyre from swamps.

Sometimes, even the screenhouseenvironment is too variable.Varieties that are very sensitiveto environmental conditionscan be grown in the controlledenvironment of the phytotron, where

factors such as daylight hours andtemperature can be manipulated.

In areas of the farm not usedfor research, rice is grown forproduction. The harvest fromthese fields is processed in theIRRI rice mill and distributed tostaff. By-products, such as branand broken grains, are sold. Themill also facilitates research intoimproving rice milling techniques.

The production areas expandand contract as research demand

for land fluctuates each year.But, as Mr. Rickman explains,efficiency is fundamental.

Although it s a research station,he says, we try to run the farm oncommercial lines. We try to make itas efficient as possible in terms ofboth labor and dollars and cents.

The value of the farm, though,is not in the rice produced. Itsworth lies in the opportunity itprovides scientists to put theirresearch to the test researchthat aims to help poor farmersproduce more rice, economicallyand sustainably, and so improve thelives of some of the worlds poorestand most vulnerable people.

In many ways, the IRRI farm isthe institute itself. Without the farm,there is no IRRI, says Mr. Rickman.If we lost the farm, we would losemuch of IRRIs value and, ultimately,our contribution to the poor.