The Star 16 Jan 18;
PETALING JAYA: Clearfield was a popular strain when it was introduced seven years ago.
Its efficacy and high yields – up to nine tonnes per hectare – made it a much sought-after variation.
But its popularity wavered when farmers noticed its resistance to herbicide.
Jitra-based Muhamad Rafirdaus Abu Bakar said that two years after it was introduced, farmers found that herbicide used to eliminate weedy rice was no longer effective.
From nine tonnes per hectare, the yield dropped to six.
“The weedy rice competed with Clearfield for water and fertilisers in the padi field. It then dominated the growing space.”
Muhamad Rafirdaus, who owned a hectare of padi field and rented another 13ha due to the lucrative output, found himself caught in a bind after he was unable to earn enough profit to pay the land lease, fertiliser and weedkiller to sustain the bigger field.
“Never mind a decent wage. When you average the profits across one season, it’s only about RM600 to RM700 a month,” he said.
And he said he was not alone. His friend operating under the Muda Agricultural Development Authority (Mada) in Kedah also faced a similar predicament.
Sekinchan Farm Operators Unit’s chairman Sam Fai said Sabak Bernam and Sekinchan, traditionally known as the more productive rice-growing areas in the country, were also not spared.
“The padi output from these two areas dropped from nine tonnes a hectare to five.”
Farmers, he said, were unable to get back their operating cost.
Fai said many of them were contemplating switching to more profitable crops such as oil palm.
Farmers go against the grain
eddie chua The Star 16 Jan 18;
EXCLUSIVE: PETALING JAYA: Padi farmers around the country are abandoning the supposedly “high yield’ Clearfield padi strain.
The special strain, which took seven years’ research and a grant of RM1.2mil to develop, is now a flop.
Instead of solving the problem, it amplified it, no thanks in part to greedy farmers.
Seeing its bountiful yield, they planted Clearfield more often than they were supposed to.
“The special padi plant has now cross-bred with the weedy rice or padi angin, which is considered a pest in commercial rice fields,” said Mardi’s Rice Research Centre director Dr Zainal Abidin Hassan.
“Farmers are unable to control the weedy rice from growing, making it more expensive to maintain the field,” he said.
Clearfield or CL rice cultivar was jointly developed between the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) and chemical giant BASF.
The strain takes a shorter time to grow, consumes less water and promises high productivity.
Clearfield yielded eight to nine tonnes of padi per hectare compared with other Malaysian rice strains, which could only produce slightly above five tonnes per hectare.
Dr Zainal said Clearfield should only be grown in two cycles in a year, with an interval of one planting season.
But farmers cashed in on the strain’s easier upkeep and planted beyond the recommended guidelines.
“Farmers took advantage of the high yield and grew it more times than what they were supposed to.
“As a result, the weed cross-bred with Clearfield.
“Clearfield transferred its herbicide-resistant trait to the weedy rice, making it a hybrid, resistance to the herbicide which is used at the beginning of the padi growing season to stem its growth,” said Dr Zainal.
He said that over 80% of the weed was now resistant to imidazolinone, based on Mardi’s two-year study at major rice-growing areas around the country.
He said Clearfield was supposed to have a lifespan of at least between 10 and 15 years before it outlived its usefulness.
“The effort and time spent to develop this hardy strain is now wasted,” said Dr Zainal.
He said that finding a new hardy variation to replace Clearfield would be a long and expensive affair.
“Clearfield was developed on a pre-existing technology. Despite that, it took seven years to be perfected.”
The same cross-breeding issue has also been demonstrated by a team of academics from Universiti Putra Malaysia, who carried out field tests and demonstrated how weedy rice could carry over the herbicide-resistant trait in one year.
Dr Zainal said that despite the unclear future of Clearfield, they were hoping to find a solution.
“We are carrying out experiments to modify the current two Clearfield variations to make it hardier and useful again. Only time will tell.”
Dr Zainal said while Mardi developed the strain, they did not keep track of who grew the crop.
But in recent years, through their observations and field studies in several private rice fields in Pahang and several other rice-growing states, they found that the padi angin was resistant to herbicide and farmers were abandoning the strain.
Due to greed, farmers reap what they sow – literally
The Star 16 Jan 18;
PETALING JAYA: Clearfield rice was based on technology first commercialised in the United States to combat the weed problem in rice fields.
Its success in overcoming this problem saw it widely adopted in South America and Italy.
Malaysia jumped on the bandwagon in 2003 and took seven years to perfect the pre-existing strain to suit the local environment.
Research to find the local solution was undertaken by Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) and chemical giant BASF Malaysia.
The two new strains can outlive the herbicide used to control and eliminate weedy rice at the beginning of the padi planting season.
However, there are specific requirements and recommendations when planting the variations.
To prevent cross-breeding, Clearfield cannot be planted for more than two cycles in a season.
However, padi farmers here did not follow the above recommendations.
Three years after it was first planted, there were already signs of abuse by padi farmers.
It took two years of extensive research to confirm the findings, but by the time the result showed that it had cross-bred with weedy rice, it was already too late to reverse the adverse effects.
It was also near impossible to start from scratch again as most fields in the country had already started using Clearfield and were affected by the cross-breeding.
