Researcher testing new varieties of rice

MALDEN, Mo. -- More than 1,000 varieties of rice grow in the small plots on a farm west of Malden. Few of those varieties are likely to end up in a saucepan on your stove.

Dr. Donn Beighley's job is to develop and test new varieties of rice to identify those best suited for the Bootheel, where most of Missouri's $100 million rice crop grows. Beighley currently is growing four long-grain varieties and two medium-grain varieties that have the potential to be released to Missouri rice growers. The effects of soil fertility, insects and weeds are on the minds of five other researchers from Southeast Missouri State University and from the University of Missouri Delta Research Center. The farm is owned by the Missouri Rice Research and Merchandising Council, an organization composed of rice producers who underwrite the research.

About half the rice grown in America's six rice-producing states is exported, much of it to Mexico and Latin America, where the U.S. Rice Producers Association has set up schools to teach people how to augment the corn and beans in their diet with rice. The organization is lobbying hard to ease financing restrictions that limit rice exports to Cuba.

Beighley, a research fellow in Southeast's Department of Agriculture, is in charge of the 110-acre farm. This week, he and 21 other researchers from around the world will meet in the Philippines to take a two-week course titled "Laying the Foundation for the Second Green Revolution."

The first Green Revolution, which lasted from the 1940s to the 1960s, brought First World advances in cross-pollination, irrigation and chemical fertilizers to the Third World, resulting in unprecedented crop yields, primarily in wheat. The goal was to boost food production to keep pace with population growth, particularly in poorer countries. "It was made available to anybody who wanted it," Beighley said. "It was not limited to those who had. It also went to those who didn't have."

Plots near Malden, Mo., are being used to test varieties of rice to find which are best suited for the Bootheel. (Submitted photo)

In the Philippines, researchers will learn more about the foundations of a new Green Revolution that might as well be called the Gene Revolution. Rice production in the future will be more dependent on rice genomics and information technology than on advances in fertilizers. The course is coordinated by the Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology Division of the International Rice Research Institute.

Beighley does not manipulate plant genes. He breeds varieties of rice the conventional way, taking pollen from one plant and putting it on another plant. That is done in greenhouses at Southeast or at the farm. "When you step into the petri dish, then we perhaps are getting into biotechnology," Beighley said. "We are not doing that at this time."

Rice growers and Anheuser-Busch protested two years ago when a company called Ventria Biosciences proposed growing genetically modified rice at a small farm near Chaffee. Beer making is one use of rice.

Ventria wanted to use the genetically modified rice to make proteins that could combat severe dehydration due to diarrhea. The company said the condition kills 1.3 million children under 5 every year worldwide. Ventria currently is trying to get permits to grow the rice in Kansas.

No genetically modified rice is grown in the six rice-producing states in the United States, Beighley said. He said genetically modified rice is grown in some states where no commercial rice production occurs.

Arkansas is the top rice-producing state in the United States. A small amount of rice is grown in Cape Girardeau and Scott counties, but the bulk of Missouri's rice crop grows in Butler and Stoddard counties.

Tens of thousands of varieties of rice are in existence, but fewer than 30 are in production in the United States. Wells, a high-yielding rice with good milling quality, is the variety primarily grown in Missouri.

John Burnett, president of the Missouri Rice Research and Merchandising Council, and his son grow 800 acres of rice near Parma. Burnett said rice can grow on land that can't support other crops. Rice production is primarily limited to six states -- Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, California and Missouri -- because they have the right climate, flat ground and mills. Southeast Missouri's rice mills are in Marston and Bernie.

The effect of the recent long run of high temperatures in Southeast Missouri is yet to be determined Beighley said. He said hot temperatures can hurt pollination.

The public is invited to a rice research field day to be held at the farm from 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday. The farm is 13 miles west of Malden.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137