Hybrid seeds give Laguna rice farmer 40% more harvest

Rice farmer Celso Manila had never used hybrid rice in his plot. So it was a complete surprise to the former pathologist that after using Bayer CropScience Arize Bigante, his farm’s yield grew by about 40 percent.

A season after planting the hybrid seeds, Mang Celso, as friends and family know him, harvested more than 250 cavans of rice compared to the 180 cavans produced by certified or inbred seeds at his 1.5-hectare farm in Calauan, Laguna.

"I used to harvest more or less 180 bags from my 1.5-hectare plot. I never broke through the 200-cavan mark," Mang Celso said in the vernacular. "Now that I’m using Arize Bigante hybrid seeds, I harvest no fewer than 250 cavans."

"My experience with these hybrid seeds is indeed great," he added.

Arize Bigante is planted in most parts of the Philippines during both wet and dry seasons. It has a unique ability to tolerate bacterial leaf blight, a plant disease common during the rainy season that can significantly reduce yield.

Over the past seasons, the hybrid seed has consistently demonstrated an average yield of eight metric tons per hectare however; it also exhibited an outstanding potential yield of 17 metric tons per hectare in a farmer’s field in San Jose, Nueva Ecija in 2005.

Mang Celso, meanwhile, has used Arize Bigante twice already, and both tries have given him an additional 20-percent income.

"That’s already big," he said, referring to the extra revenue.

"Although the hybrid seeds are a little more expensive than their inbred counterparts, it is easy to plant and maintain."

Hybrid rice is relatively new to farmers in the Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) area with only five percent, or five out of 100 farmers, using the technology.

"They (farmers) are still in the process of getting to know hybrid technology. Although some farmers in the northern part of the Calabarzon area are already using hybrid rice seeds," said Alexandra Q. Jamoralin, assistant regional rice coordinator, DA region field unit (RFU-4)-Calabarzon.

A bag of certified seeds costs P880 while one bag of Arize Bigante hybrid rice seeds costs about P2,350. The price difference can well be compensated by the increase in yield from Arize Bigante.

Following the success of Arize Bigante, Bayer Bioscience is set to launch this year its latest hybrid rice variety, the Arize H64. It has short maturity at 105 days and high milling recovery. Its grains are long and slender with excellent taste quality.