• 6.1. Interesting facts

6. Appendix

6.1. Interesting facts

• Laos has dealt with the rodent problem by eating them!
• Cambodian National Golf course is the only one in the world where women walk in front of the men (I am unsure if this is related to the rule of Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge who riddled Cambodia with land mines).
• 85% of rice produced is glutinous (they love sticky rice. I bought 8 sticky rice cane baskets home and have now realised that glutinous rice is not available in the Riverina).
• Since 1990 there have been 6 serious floods in Laos. Rather than develop submergence tolerance they prefer to take them out of production. In 1995, floods damaged 29% of the Lao rice area . When I flew into Phnom Penh I asked the local person sitting next to me what ocean was that and they replied "That's Cambodia". Looking more closely I could see some roofs.
• Currently the population of Laos is 5 million and is projected to be 8 million by 2020.
• The majority of funding for agricultural research in Laos and Cambodia is derived from international donors (eg ACIAR, AUSAID) and government funding.
• Common land preparation for rice is 3 cultivations, 2 ploughs, 1 harrow, flood and then transplant.
• Extension staff in Cambodia said that farmers would tell the truth and assist them, in exchange for food.
• A successful way to randomly select farms for research has been to throw a grain of rice on a map.
• Women in the field who were processing rice plants were earning US$1.2 each day.
• When we drove down the driveway into CARDI, they were reconstructing the roads in front of us following floods.
• From my experience people in Southeast Asia are amongst the happiest people in the world I have seen despite poverty and famine.

Temperature constraints to rice production in Australia and Laos: a shared problem

T. C. Farrell^ABC, K.M. Fox^BC, R. L. Williams^BC, S. Fukai^A, R. F. Reinke^C and L. G. Lewin^A
School of Land and Food, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
^BCooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Rice Production, Yanco Agricultural Institute, NSW 2703, Australia
^CNSW Agriculture, Yanco Agricultural Institute, NSW 2703, Australia

Abstract

With the transition to dry season rice production, Laos now faces many new challenges relating to extreme temperature problems. The temperature conditions throughout Laos are highly variable which relate to the differences in altitude and elevation. Provinces in the northern region of Laos suffer from low temperature problems during the vegetative and reproductive phase. These problems are shared by temperate rice growing countries including Australia. Provinces in southern Laos are faced with problems relating to high temperatures during anthesis.

With the establishment of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for sustainable rice production, Australia has focused on improving the level of cold tolerance of commercial varieties at the establishment and reproductive stages. Progress has been made in identifying cultivars, which have superior seedling vigour and cold tolerance and have been incorporated into the Australian breeding program. Collaborative research between Australia and Laos will prove beneficial to manage extreme temperature variability, which reduces rice yield.

Key words:

low temperature, rice, Australia, Laos, cold tolerance