Three Breeding Focuses at IRRI: Dave Mackill pioneer interview
Channel: International Rice Research Institute
Date: 2011-06-13

In this Pioneer Interview excerpt, David Mackill, who departed the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org) as a principal scientist in the Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology Division in February 2011, discusses three main breeding focuses. 

He was the program leader for rainfed rice production at IRRI and led the development of more than 20 rice cultivars adapted to the challenging growing conditions in southern Asia.  He also oversaw  the IRRI project Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa or STRASA - http://irri.org/strasa - for which he helped secure a grant worth US$19.9 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Over the last 28 years, Dr. Mackill held critical positions for rice genetics and breeding, including 10 years as a U.S. Department of Agriculture research geneticist stationed at the University of California, Davis. In the last 17 years, Dr. Mackill and colleagues identified and transferred a gene conferring submergence tolerance into new high-yielding rice varieties. Monsoonal rains plague southern Asia with flooding that destroys crops. These new rice strains are being adopted on a large scale and will translate into millions of tons of new rice for developing countries. He is now the strategic rice expert within the research and development arm of Mars Incorporated.

Interview excerpt on three main breeding focuses: 

"In more general terms, I think over the last several years we really been able to push the technology for dealing with stresses and how to develop varieties that give farmers a better chance when their rice crops are threatened by the abiotic stresses of drought, submergence, and salinity, the three main focuses of our breeding program and the STRASA [Stress-tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia; http://irri.org/strasa ] project. 

I'm quite pleased that we've made really good progress in all of them. We're getting to the point of having products that the farmers are adopting. Up until a few years ago, there was very little impact of the stress work in terms of actual varieties. So, seeing the rice varieties coming out and being adopted by farmers has been really rewarding."