RICE Research Australia Manager Russell Ford says growers will “love” a new cold tolerant rice variety that is set to be released in March next year and is expected to yield the “magical” figure of one tonne per megalitre of water.
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Mr Ford discussed the new rice product and its pending release, with Federal Coalition Members who visited the rice research facilities at Jerilderie last week, on their Murray Darling Basin listening tour.
Mr Ford said he wanted to help the politicians understand the type of work his company was doing to increase water use efficiencies at grass roots level, through strong Research and Development gains.
“The focus we tried to keep in talking with these politicians was on our water efficiency work,” he said.
“The biggest move we are making at the moment is through cold tolerance.
“We are about to release a new rice variety with a couple of degrees extra cold tolerance which means you don’t have to insulate it as much.
“That means less water use but also a higher yield which again relates back to water efficiency.”
In trial work, Mr Ford said the new rice variety had yielded around the “magical” one tonne to one megalitre figure.
“That’s very efficient especially if you compare it to what else is happening around the world,” he said.
“For example, it’s at least double the water efficiency of most other Asian crops.
“In field trials we held last year, the new variety yielded close to 13/tonnes per hectare overall.”
Mr Ford said based on last year’s returns of $550/t, the financial outcome of the new variety was another encouraging sign for rice producers.
“If we could repeat that every year the whole world would grow rice.”
The new variety is currently in the seed development stage.
But after its release at the annual Rice Field Day in March 2011, Mr Ford said it would “come on board straight away”, with enough seed available for the rice industry to utilise immediately.
“It will be switched on straight away,” he said.
“It’s a medium grain rice; medium grain base.
“Unfortunately it’s still a smaller grain type - we’d like to see some of the bolder bigger grain types coming through and we are working on that at the moment.
“But this is a big agronomic jump and the growers are going to love it.
“It will give them more insurance for growing the crop but also better yields.”
The rice variety’s breeder, Dr Peter Snell, also gave the Coalition contingent an insight into Rice Research Australia’s innovative work and an update on the development of his new cold tolerant rice variety.
Dr Snell said rice needed to become a more flexible crop to fit in with predicted changes for water use in the area.
He said rice also needed to adopt more of a “whole of farm approach”, where greater efficiencies were achieved from water use in the entire farming system.
South Australian Senator, Simon Birmingham witnessed a number of water efficiency practices on the tour, including Rice Research Australia’s plans to release its new cold tolerant rice variety.
The Senator said he was impressed by the smart farming practices.
“We have seen some great examples of people who are clever in ensuring that every drop of water they have is used wisely,” he said.
“We have met with groups who have not talked about a dollar per hectare return but a dollar per mega-litre return on their investments.
“That’s the sign of a changing attitude.
“They recognise it’s about getting the best value and bang for their buck out of their water investment as much as it is about getting value out of their land investment.
“That attitude is spreading and the more it spreads the more you will get people who, with or without government programs, are going to look for the maximum efficiencies and returns.
“That’s what you want from a valuable commodity like water.”
Shadow Water Minister Barnaby Joyce said the new cold tolerant rice variety was encouraging and showed that people were “thinking outside the circle” to bring in more water saving measures.
“Genetic research into rice is very encouraging, that’s the sort of research we should be pouring money into,” he said.
“They are real water savings - plants that yield better but use less water.
“I’d be happy to put half a billion or a billion dollars on the table for anything that used less water but yielded better.”
Federal Nationals Leader Warren Truss was also on the tour and said some of the work being done to save water in rice and cotton production systems, deserved greater credit.
“Two industries that always seem to cop the criticism, rice and cotton, have both been very profitable industries and they are industries of choice,” he said.
“Because they have been profitable there have been remarkable advances in technology and the private sector has been willing to invest in research because of that.
“Rice and cotton industries have invested in technologies that have provided outstanding advancements in water savings and they need to be given far more credit for that because it is making a significant difference to irrigators and farmers.”
