Chilean Innovation in rice attracted Interest from Uzbekistan to face drought problems
INIA researcher Karla Cordero presented the Chilean experience in the development of a rice production system that introduces a new variety less demanding of water and a change in the traditional flood irrigation system.
Invited by the Uzbekistan Rice Research Institute, the researcher and head of the rice genetic improvement program at INIA, Karla Cordero, participated in a technical meeting that brought together about fifty researchers from various countries in Central Asia.
The presence of the national specialist was framed in a scientific collaboration agreement between INIA Chile and the Uzbek research body which, given the water scarcity situation affecting the country, seeks to understand the Chilean experience. Indeed, in the last year, the work generated by the national researcher had repercussions throughout the rice world, as it moved from traditional flooded crops to the establishment of technified irrigation systems such as drip. The system conceived as a base, the generation of a new variety naturally adapted to conditions of less water availability, without affecting quality or yields.
Climate-Smart Rice
Karla Cordero, an agronomist engineer and doctor in plant breeding, was the main speaker at the meeting, where she presented the advances and challenges of research in rice and legumes, in a context of climate change. In it, she presented the results of the development in Chile of climate-smart rice, a long-standing work that also involved Latin American organizations such as Fontagro, IICA and FLAR.
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The researcher explained that this new methodology, known in English as SRI (System of Rice Intensification), incorporates intermittent irrigation and is intended to reformulate the traditional method of flooding rice production. Precisely these are the factors that prompted the invitation of the crop improver to Uzbekistan, a country with a population of 37 million people, for whom rice is an essential food and needs to continue production in the context of severe drought.
"They need to produce under conditions of low water requirement, so what we have been developing in Chile fits them like a glove," stressed Cordero. In this sense, he explained that both countries produce and consume the same type of rice - the temperate japonica, unlike the majority of countries accustomed to indica rice - so Uzbekistan can become a strategic ally for genetic diversification.
"They also benefit from our germplasm and, above all, what we have developed in irrigation systems, such as drip irrigation, which they are really going to have to use, perhaps sooner than us," she highlighted.
The researcher from INIA Quilamapu asserted that the information provided sparked significant interest from the present scientific community, generating connections and possible instances of rice genetic material exchange between both countries.
The meeting held in the capital Tashkent, brought together specialists from Uzbekistan, Korea, China, Kazakhstan, and representatives from Germany, Turkestan, Israel, among others.
