More than half of the world’s population depends on rice as their staple food. In Bohol, about 25% or 47,378 hectares of its agricultural lands are planted to rice. About 55% of these depends on rain as its source of irrigation water.
Lack of irrigation puts stress on growing rice, and other factors such as drought, salinity, submergence, and nutrient deficiencies also limit rice production. Such areas comprise 51% or around 24,284 hectares of riceland in the province. Hence, the greatest potential for increasing rice yield lies on these types of land.
Using recently developed rice varieties, the Bohol Agricultural Promotion Center (BAPC) participated in a multi-environment testing of stress tolerant rice from 2008 to 2010. This has resulted in several varietal recommendations for the Boholano farmers, particularly those tilling marginal rice fields:
- For zinc deficient soils (both low & high pH soils), elite line IR55179-3B-11-3 had stable yield of 5.7 (low pH soil) to 6.2 t/ha (high pH, calcareous soils); 4 elite lines also yielded high in high pH, calcareous soils
- For rainfed, drought-prone areas in Bohol NSIC Rc 222, NSIC Rc 192 and PSB Rc 68 are recommended
- For saline-prone areas in Bohol PSB Rc 88 is recommended
- For submergence-prone areas Raeline 10, PSB Rc 18-Sub1, elite line PR37416-18-1 are the recommended varieties
- And for zinc deficiency + iron toxicity soil complex (low pH soils), IR77674-8-2-2-8-2-4 is recommended.
Additional information on these rice varieties are available at the BAPC Research Development and Extension (RD&E) Division, under the direct supervision of Dr. Mary Jean C. Du.