Lao PDR - the "crown jewel" in rice biodiversity project

Box 3. Seepana Appa Rao—an intense "will" led to success

Dr. Seepana Appa Rao, the GRC Biodiversity Project’s resident rice germplasm collector for the last 5 plus years in the Lao PDR, almost did not accept the position back in 1994 because he had never dealt with rice—although he was an experienced germplasm specialist with other crops. A trained botanist, Appa Rao earned his Ph D in plant breeding and genetics in 1974 at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur—the MIT of India.

The Hyderabad, India, native spent 19 years based in his hometown with ICRISAT, but occupied much of his time crisscrossing Asia and Africa to collect traditional varieties of sorghum (10,000 samples), pearl millet (20,000), groundnut (3,000), and pigeonpea (2,000) among others in 24 countries. 

"After such a long time at ICRISAT, I decided it was time to take a chance and make a change—regardless of the fact I had no experience with rice," he says. "When he hired me, Dr. Jackson (head of IRRI’s GRC) gave me a lot of flexibility—asking me to keep him informed, but to do what I had to do." 

His subsequent successes in Lao PDR add strong support to the idea that solid knowledge of germplasm collection principles is most important. "Specific knowledge of rice came quickly to me as I immersed myself in the crop," Appa Rao says. "All the more reason to feel confident that the scores of extension officers in Lao PDR and other countries who learned to collect rice specifically will easily move on to other crops now that their jobs with rice are almost finished."

Although Appa Rao has been based in Lao PDR, he has also been responsible for Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and southern China where training was his major emphasis. "Originally, I was to spend about 50% of my time in Lao PDR, but gradually with the success of the project, including the establishment of the Lao genebank and the concomitant characterization and evaluation required, my time extended to around 90%. 

Appa Rao was present during the collection of close to 70% of the nearly 13,000 samples that are now safely stored in the NARC genebank. "Of course, I never collected alone," he emphasizes. "I was always with a person from headquarters (usually Ms. Chay Bounphanousay, the NARC germplasm bank coordinator) and representatives of the province and district." 

Regarding the genebank he is so proud of, Appa Rao says: "Early on, we wanted to show that this was truly a Lao activity by keeping much of what we collected in the country. So, even though a genebank was not on the project’s original schedule, thanks to SDC support coming from both the Biodiversity and Lao-IRRI projects, we were able to construct a small facility for medium-term storage at NARC headquarters north of Vientiane."

Small duplicate samples for long-term storage still are sent to the International Rice Genebank at IRRI. However, the genebank has since acquired long-term storage capability (at least 60 years) with the purchase of three deep freezers, which can maintain samples at -18^o C (see photo). IRRI has begun returning some high quality seed samples to Vientiane for long-term storage in the freezers.

Appa Rao worked diligently to learn reading, writing, and speaking the Lao language, which is used by about 50% of the population. "I gave a tutor a fee of $5/day to come to my house every morning for 1 hour," Appa Rao relates. "I did this for 2 months before I had to start my collection trips. After that, I studied in reverse with language tapes originally designed for Lao speakers to learn English. Whenever I traveled by car, I played the tapes." Knowledge of Lao has helped him immensely to communicate with farmers on the collection trips and to translate the meanings of variety names (See Box 1).

With some nearly 25 years of experience, Appa Rao developed his own way of collecting. Books by germplasm collection experts provide guidelines that are too idealistic for him. "Human beings, countries, situations all change due to politics and economics, so it is practically impossible to find ideal situations in the field," he says. "The books say ‘first go and explore to see where the biodiversity is concentrated (hot spots) and then go back to collect from only those areas where maximum diversity is found.’ But this would not have worked in Lao PDR where traditional varieties were about to be rapidly replaced. So, I decided to collect everything while there was an opportunity to do so and to worry about sorting out duplicate samples later." 

Appa Rao’s intense "will" to get the job done was contagious among his Lao counterpart teammates—together they amassed approximately 13,000 samples—more than half the total collected in the other 24 countries participating in the project!

The project has been tough on his family life, however. "My wife Padmaja is a senior rice physiologist at the Directorate of Rice Research in Hyderbad," he says, "so she did not want to come here to be a housewife where the husband was on the road most of the time anyway." Appa Rao has two grown daughters, Sree Devi and Sree Kala, he speaks of proudly since both are medical doctors—one in Hyderbad and the other in Omaha, Nebraska. "With the family away, I didn’t feel so guilty about working long hours since nobody was waiting at home," he rationalizes. "Now that that the project has concluded, I plan to spend some time with my family in India."

 

back to top