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26 Rice TodayOctober-December 2004 Rice TodayOctober-December 2004

Gary Atlin recalls a meeting in 200

breeders in Delhi, India, that aimthe International Rice Research I(IRRI) and its national partners f

resources on promoting improved rice c

farmers would not accept.There are lots of requirements to fil

the Canadian rice breeder, who had star

only the year before. You need your agrlike high yield potential, disease and pes

and tolerance of problem soils, flooding And you need your grain quality traits, wfrom place to place, but generally includand texture. But in India we heard repea

farmers who rejected a rice variety becaulike it the day after they cooked it. I thoThis is just too hard.

Qualittimeby Peter Fredenburg

Rice scientists have long foc

on helping Asian farmers re

bountiful and reliable harve

of affordable rice. Now they

taking up the additional ch

of improving the staple grai

nutrition and palatability

MELISSA FITZGERALD (center) and the first staffassigned to the new Grain Quality and Nutrition

Research Center at IRRI, (from left) Teody Atienza,Juanny Alzona, Puring Sandoval and Dory Resurrec-cion, pose before some of the new equipment. Workbegan in temporary quarters as renovations contin-ued on the US$1.2 million, 500-square-meter lab.

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28 Rice TodayOctober-December 2004 Rice TodayOctober-December 2004

Dr. Atlin still breeds rice at IRRIand swears by enlisting farmers inparticipatory varietal selection (seeTaking PartinRice Today, Vol.

3 No. 2, pages 22-26). SatisfyingAsias barefoot rice connoisseurs isstill hard, but with the opening soonof IRRIs new Grain Quality andNutrition Research Center, the job

may get easier.How much rice hardens when it

cools is one aspect of cooking quality,confirms Melissa Fitzgerald, who

recently joined IRRI to set up thecenter and head its operations. Ofcourse, we also look at how hard orsoft it is when freshly cooked. Is itsticky or dry and fluffy? Looking at

the uncooked grains, are they uniformin size and shape? Are they whole,or are a lot of them broken? Are theychalky or nicely translucent? Are they

white or tinged with yellow?

Dr. Fitzgeralds job is to get ahandle on these attributes one thatstands up to scientific measurementand analysis.

People talk about grain qualityusing adjectives, but rice is made ofnouns starch, proteins and lipids,or fatty acids, she points out. The

research program were starting hereis for understanding the nouns andhow they interact to form translucent,

white grains. Research is just at thepoint of learning what hardness oncooling means in terms of the nouns.

In addition to conductingresearch, the center will perform aservice for breeders, screening theirlines for desired quality traits.

I want to tailor the quality-evaluation program to meet each

breeders needs, Dr. Fitzgeraldemphasizes. Take the problem ofchalk, which occurs in rice grains when

starch granules fail to pack tightlyenough to create a translucent, firmgrain that mills well. The cause is

usually environmental or agronomic,but it can be genetic. When a breeder

brings us a chalky grain sample, goodquality evaluation includes identifyingthe cause. This will ensure that

breeders dont waste time trying to

breed out chalkiness that isnt genetic.And what about aroma, the

quality that wreathes jasmine and

basmati in what their admirersconsider the essence of heaven?

Were not sure yet how aroma

fits into IRRIs mandate, she replies.But aroma is not just the jasmineand basmati kind. Aroma conjuresmore adjectives, not all of them nice creamy and vanilla, but also grassy

and metallic. Well be maintainingthe equipment to measure aroma, butfocusing on all aromas, not primarilyon the volatile compounds unique to

jasmine and basmati.

New frameworkIRRI is establishing the GrainQuality and Nutrition Research

Center now in response to calls forimproved grain quality emanatingfrom recent meetings of the Councilfor Partnerships on Rice Research

in Asia. Since 1996, the council hasguided partnerships teaming IRRI

with the national agricultural researchand extension systems of 16 Asiancountries.

Regarding nutrition, the center

fits into a new framework created byHarvest Plus, a challenge programlaunched last year by the ConsultativeGroup on International Agricultural

Research (CGIAR), IRRIs parentorganization. Harvest Plus coordinatesa concerted, cooperative researcheffort to get meaningful amounts ofessential vitamins and minerals into

the staple foods that even the po orestof the poor can afford, if only becauseno food is cheaper (seeBreeding for

Nutrition inRice Today, Vol. 2 No.2, pages 24-26). IRRI participates by

breeding tropical indica versions ofprovitamin A-rich Golden Rice and

by developing high-iron rice (lookfor exciting research results expected

to be published soon in a refereedscientific journal).

In a 2002 proposal to set up the

center, Robin Graham, a professor atthe University of Adelaide in Australiaand the scientific coordinator of theCGIAR Micronutrients Project, the

forerunner of Harvest Plus, lamentedthat IRRI breeders working on high-iron rice were sending their samplesto Adelaide for analysis because trialanalyses in the Analytical Service

Laboratory at IRRI were unacceptable.Prof. Graham surmised that

the laboratorys failure to performexacting micronutrient analyses

resulted from highly likelycontamination from its otheractivities, including soil analysis. Aplant micronutrient laboratory, he

wrote, requires a contamination-free

environment, with a positive-pressureventilation system and largelymetal-free lab furniture, fittings andfacilities. For example, paint needs to

be acrylic and carefully chosen for its

low content of heavy metals.He noted, This obviously can

be expensive. But IRRI needed toante up. Otherwise, it would fall

behind as an emerging productive,sustainable and nutritious foodsystems paradigm, elucidated byProf. Graham and others, redefines

agricultures role in human health.The tried and proven approach

to balanced nutrition of the pastis to promote a highly varied dietto ensure that everyone receivesall the nutrients required, whether

they be known to science or not,the Australian professor wrote inthe proposal. But such diets arerelatively expensive and not available

to the resource poor in developingcountries of the South.

Grain quality is thus a vital healthissue, especially for poor rice farmersand consumers. It is also key to adding

value to the crop and so alleviating

rural poverty. That the job of runningIRRIs Grain Quality and NutritionResearch Center should go to Prof.Grahams fellow Australian is nosurprise, as that countrys small but

strongly export-oriented rice industryhas built its solid market presence ona foundation of high quality.

When I took over our quality-

evaluation program in Australia fromTony Blakeny, I continued developingobjective, instrumental means ofevaluation to replace subjectivemeans, says the youthful Dr.

Fitzgerald, whose dynamic career hasincluded work as a cereal chemist andresearch scientist at the New South

Wales Department of AgriculturesYanco Agricultural Institute. I also

set up the research program there tounderstand quality, so wed know just

what it is were evaluating. Here atIRRI, Im setting up both programs

at once, building on the foundationof Tonys vision and continuing myresearch. Its a great opportunity.

The startup cost for the 500-

square-meter center is US$1.2 million.IRRIs million-dollar stake, drawnfrom unrestricted core funds, is evenlysplit between building renovationsand equipment purchases. A further$200,000 from the Monsanto Fund

is earmarked for equipment. On Dr.Fitzgeralds staff will be six Philippinescientists and, for work on GoldenRice funded by the Asian Development

Bank, a postdoctoral research fellow.Using temporary facilities, the

team startedperformingquality

evaluations inJune on what

breeders call the

12 mega varietiesmost widely

grown in Asia.These

were bred foragronomic traits

and to improvequality, Dr.Fitzgerald says.

But we need to understand what to

look for.Starting with physical traits, she

demonstrates a $45,000 Danish-madegrain inspector that is so new its not

yet released. The machine swallows

a handful of grain and starts spittingout measurements: percentages of

whole grains and broken, percentageof chalk, average grain length and its

standard deviation, and average grainwidth and its standard deviation. Thenit returns the whole sample unharmed.

Cooking qualityNondestructive testing is valuable

because it allows us to do our cookingtest with the same sample, Dr.Fitzgerald explains. Sometimes

breeders can spare us only a few

grams of a new breeding line. Andhigh-throughput is important becausethey give us so many to test.

A machine for testing cooking

quality measures the changingviscosity of a slurry of rice flour andwater as it is heated from 50C to95 and then cooled again to 50.Two factors that affect cooking time

and grain softness are gelatinizationtemperature (when heat causes thestarch granules to swell irreversibly)

and amylose content both of whichcan be measured separately and

automatically.Amylose accounts for up to 30%

of the starch in rice, and amylopectinfor the rest, Dr. Fitzgerald explains.

Waxy or glutinous rice which ispopular in Japan and in northeastThailand and Laos has little or no

amylose. The rule of thu

higher the amylose contthe rice. So you would exsame cooking quality in

with the same amylose cbut the cooking process

components of the graindifferent. In other wordplenty of exceptions to tlook at other things. Pro

for 5-9% of rice and can water, so thats a factor.the architecture of the stdifferences in amylopec

structure can lead to bighow the water is absorb

And starch is interterms of nutritional valuaside protein and microshe adds. We look at th

is digested. Slowly digesremains in the gut longefeel full longer. What is of resistant starch? How

the stuff gets all the wayyour small intestine witabsorbed? Resistant sta

bowel health.Dr. Fitzgerald repor

Australian experience inevaluation will be directto her work at IRRI, as w

of her own research theprotein, resistant starch

Meanwhile, the marriedthree clearly relishes hein the Philippines and thround out her research

In Australia the ricjaponica, but here its alindica, she smiles. Th

INSPECTING RICE at IRRI in 1999 are (from left) Howarth Bouis, director of the Harvest Pluchallenge program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research; Glenn

breeder leading IRRIs work on high-iron rice; and Robin Graham, scientific coordinator of CGIAR Micronutrients Project. Prof. Graham championed setting up the lab to improve the being of poor rice consumers like the girl pictured below . Rice starch (opposite) magnified

IRRI

MELISSAFITZGERALD