Dr. Tran Tan Phuong - former Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Soc Trang province next to the experimental rice field. Photo: Chi Kong
Research under the mango tree
Dr. Tran Tan Phuong shared that he started out as a farmer, attached to the fields since childhood. After graduating from university and completing his master's thesis on fragrant rice varieties, he officially embarked on the path of rice breeding. His doctoral thesis also continued to revolve around the topic of fragrant rice, demonstrating his deep attachment to this field.
Through the research process, Dr. Phuong realized that Soc Trang province used to have many delicious rice varieties but the disadvantage was low yield and could only be grown 1 crop/year. Therefore, crossbreeding fragrant rice varieties that still ensure high yield and can be grown 2-3 crops/year is extremely necessary.
Recalling the time when he started working more than 20 years ago, Dr. Phuong said that at that time, the whole country seemed to only focus on productivity and ignored fragrant rice varieties.
“To create fragrant rice, we had to overcome a huge barrier. The goal is to make fragrant rice that can be grown 2-3 times a year, has high yield and is especially resistant to pests and planthoppers,” Dr. Phuong shared.
In 2003, his research team officially entered the breeding phase. When they first started, the team had only 3 people, no laboratory, had to rent fields, and even worked under mango trees or in huts filled with rice husks.
In the early difficult days, the group still worked hard to breed varieties. From simple combinations of 2-3 parents, they produced varieties such as ST11, ST12. Later, each combination had up to a dozen parents to integrate aroma, softness, resistance to pests and diseases, and beautiful seed shape. Thanks to that, varieties ST24, ST25 were born one after another.
ST25 - Crystallization of decades of selection and breeding
The ST25 rice variety won the title of " World's Best Rice" in 2019 and will continue to be honored in 2023 as the result of a decades-long implementation and evaluation process.
Mr. Phuong said that ST25 inherited and developed from intermediate hybrid combinations such as ST11 and ST19. Of these, ST19, although having good quality, was susceptible to rice blast disease, leading to its improvement into ST20. However, ST20 has not been widely developed in the provinces. After many improvements, ST25 was born with all the outstanding characteristics: long, shiny, fragrant, and flexible grain shape - "like a model", according to Mr. Phuong's metaphor.
Mr. Phuong shared that the process of breeding high-quality fragrant rice varieties was guided by signals from the market, especially through close cooperation with Hero of Labor, Engineer Ho Quang Cua, who accompanied him in research and market access. From practical feedback, the team developed a plan to collect rice varieties from many regions across the country and around the world.
Dr. Phuong said that his initial goal was only to serve farmers in Soc Trang and had no desire to grow in other provinces. However, demand from other regions is increasing, especially from the Central, Central Highlands and Northern regions, so the research team has expanded the scope of variety development by continuing to improve.
Up to now, ST25 variety is not only associated with Soc Trang fields but has been widely grown throughout the country.
Going to the fields is like going to a flower garden.
Currently, he and his colleagues are focusing all their efforts on selecting and creating new rice varieties from more than 3,000 varieties collected domestically and internationally, and more than 20,000 hybrid combinations are still waiting to be evaluated one crop at a time. It is expected to take 2-3 years to complete the entire process.
“We dream of creating rice varieties that make farmers as happy as taking care of flowers. Seeing the beauty, the fragrance, and the pride in the fields is the highest goal of agricultural scientists,” Dr. Phuong affirmed.
Source: https://laodong.vn/cong-doan/nguoi-gop-phan-lam-nen-thuong-hieu-gao-st25-ngon-nhat-the-gioi-1517208.ldo
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