The community of practices concept applied to rice production in the mekong region PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 06 September 2007 14:17

Rationale:Countries in Mekong Region share similar rice planting ecosystems and constraints in rice production. Application of biotechnology like marker-assisted selection (MAS) in rice breeding had been proven effective in Thailand. Rice Gene Discovery Unit (RGDU), BIOTEC had the opportunity to convey knowledge to its neighboring countries through trainings thus molecular breeding of rice in Mekong Region begun when long term training on MAS was initiated in 2004 as sponsored by Rockefeller Foundation. This training aims to develop popular rice varieties like CAR3, TDK1 and IR53936 from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, respectively which lack traits that may improve quality and adaptation in the local area.  During the RF training, a variety IR57514 was improved to be aromatic and with resistance gene Xa21 against bacterial leaf blight.  IR57514 is submergence and drought tolerant variety with wide adaptation in the Mekong Region since this variety has been used as regional check in drought resistance experiments conducted under RF.


The successfully concluded training under RF made the participating institutes realize the potential of biotechnology, thus under the GCP project, the lines initially developed can be continued until target location testing. In the new project, molecular techniques on QTL/gene identification and MAS must be introduced to participants from CARDI (Cambodia), NAFRI (Laos) and DAR (Myanmar) inside and outside RGDU.  On site workshops will be conducted to introduce the technology to each institute.   The developed materials will be tested in each country particularly intended for its improvement.

 

RGDU woud like to acknowledge the following :





Last Updated on Thursday, 24 June 2010 04:10