Tag Archives: agronomy
As we grapple with the world rice crisis, I think of Alexander Humboldt, Henry Bates, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, and Richard Spruce. These extraordinary naturalists wove their exceptional powers of observation into the bases of the modern sciences of biogeography, meteorology, geology, tropical biology, and evolution. Their wide interests and insight contributed...
In 1962, scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) debated the cause of low and stagnant rice yields in the tropics: was it variety or crop management? This debate ended with the release of the semidwarf IR8 in 1966, initiating the Green Revolution. The same variety, in the same year, extended this revolution to Latin America, beginning in Colombia...
Discussion of the system of rice intensification (SRI) is unfortunate because it implies SRI merits serious consideration. SRI does not deserve such attention. A multinational team has shown from both theoretical evaluations and a number of experimental tests that SRI offers no yield advantage. Significantly, these results by Sheehy et al. were published in Field Crops...
