A Taiwanese scientist visited NARI as part of a fact-finding mission to see how rice cultivation can be improved with the aid of specialized skills in rice seed development, post-processing, storage management, setting inspection criteria, and other practical areas.
Dr. Dong-Hong Wu is a specialist in rice breeding and has been working with the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) for fourteen years. In his line of work, Dr. Wu explained that rice breeding is a very important area in rice cultivation, saying there are checkpoints or areas that require close attention before releasing a rice cultivar to farmers.
He says a rice breeder has to understand that hybrid rice varieties can’t be stored or saved as it will not give maximum yield when planted, consider plant height and maturity; yield and multiple stress tolerance to disease, pests, and other climatic conditions.
Dr. Wu visited the rice fields at Bubia and Ziampir in Markham to see how well farmers are farming rice and find ways to improve farming practices for maximum yield. Apart from improved rice cultivation practices, seed inspection and quality seed production for rice and other high-value crops in Taiwan were presented.
He also visited the Southern Regional Centre in Central and conducted a two-week workshop on improved rice cultivation practices with staff. Dr. Wu expressed that PNG can make good progress not only in rice cultivation but also in other potential crops to progress which requires specialized skills and training.
Dr Dong-Hong Wu
