MANILA -- The Department of Agriculture is conducting a National Cooperative Testing to engage farmers in field testing and evaluation of elite rice lines through multi-environment trials in order to accelerate adoption of next generation (next-gen) varieties of rice to boost the country's self-sufficiency bid.

Thelma Padolina, senior consultant of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), said that next-gen rice varieties had been released as early as 2011 but its adoption had been very low.

She said that some of these varieties are for saline, rain-fed, and irrigated lowland and have potential yield ranging from six tons per hectare, even in adverse condition, to 12 tons per hectare (t/ha.).

She also said they have good eating quality and are resistant to pests and diseases such as stem borer, green leaf hopper, brown leaf hopper, bacterial leaf blight, sheath blight, and blast.

NSIC Rc324 (Salinas 10), NSIC Rc346 (Sahod Ulan 11), NSIC Rc308 (Tubigan 26), NSIC Rc298 (Tubigan 23), and NSIC Rc318H (Mestiso 48) are early-maturing that can be harvested from 104 to 114 days.

NSIC Rc342SR (Mabango 4) is an aromatic special purpose rice with a potential yield of 7 t/ha.

Maturing in 114 days, it is resistant to blast, bacterial leaf blight, sheath blight, stem borer, and green leaf hopper.

“Traditionally, elite lines are evaluated in one location only. When assessing varieties in just one location, the performance of the variety could not be fairly generalized,” Padolina said.*PNA

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