IRRI Pioneer interviews--Basmati rice in India: E.A. Siddiq

The legendary Ebrahimali Abubacker Siddiq, 78, began his long and enduring rice research career in 1968 as a cytogeneticist at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI; http://www.iari.res.in) in New Delhi, including 7 years there as a senior scientist. In 1983-86, he was as a breeder in Egypt for the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org). Returning to IARI, he was appointed professor of genetics (1986-87). In late 1987, he became project director at the Directorate of Rice Research (1987-94). He assumed the position of deputy director general (crop science) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (1994-97). During a time of transition for IRRI, he served as a member of the Institute’s Board of Trustees from 2000 to 2005. This clip features a segment from his IRRI Pioneer Interview in which he discusses the development of a semidwarf basmati rice. "My major work as a breeder was to develop high-yielding varieties with basmati quality. The unique quality in basmati rice is a very complex genetic trait. All of the starch characteristics are not simply inherited. So, combining all the quality features of traditional basmati with high yield was not an easy task. It took nearly 24 years for me, my staff, and students to finally succeed in developing Pusa Basmati 1 (PB1). At one stage during the development of PB1, some people asked me, “You are working for so many years; still you’re not coming out with high-yielding basmati rice varieties.” When visiting the field, one critic sarcastically asked, “Should we bring in Norman Borlaug [the famed father of the Green Revolution] to develop the kind of basmati rice you are trying to achieve?” I told him, you can bring not one Borlaug, but many Borlaugs; however, it will not make any difference. I tried explaining to him the complex nature of combining basmati quality with a high-yielding background. My students and I would work the whole day in the field selecting materials for the required plant type and yield potential. During the evening hours, we would cook to test the eating quality. Many nights I slept in the lab. But we were disappointed for years because we could not easily combine the quality trait that we wanted."