Newton Fund Institutional Links Programme
Introduction and significance of this programme
Rice is a major economic crop of Thailand. In order to become market world leader in rice production and promote welfare of Thai rice farmers, a National Research Strategy for Thai rice has been set up. The strategy focuses on approaches for increasing yield under changing climatic conditions and improving nutrition as well as promoting customer-orientated rice quality. The Salt - tolerant Rice Research Group at Khon Kaen University (KKU) focuses on improving rice productivity in harsh environments, in order to sustain and secure rice production for Thai rice farmers. A limitation of this research is the ability, knowledge and skills to understand and measure rice physiology, including high through-put phenotyping methods to screen for stress tolerance. The University of Essex (UoE) has significant expertise in plant phenotyping and physiology. Professor Lawson at UoE has recently developed the first imaging system for screening plant water use efficiency (McAusland et al., 2013). UoE would like to now apply this technology and expertise to crops and in particular to addressing global challenges in lower and middle income countries. This funding will facilitate vital knowledge exchange in plant phenotyping and will establish KKU as a centre for rice phenotyping. This would provide enhanced knowledge for rice production with obvious economic and social benefits. KKU and UoE researchers will develop inexpensive imaging tools to monitor rice plant productivity in field conditions in Thailand. UoE researchers will support the development of these tools through training, exchange visits and support of 2 practitioner workshops at KKU. The workshops will provide hands-on training on instrumentation use as well as teaching of the scientific background. DoE will have the opportunity to apply its expertise in plant physiology and phenotyping to rice and will benefit from the rice physiology expertise at KKU.
Objective
1. Develop high through-put and innovative physiological phenotyping approaches and techniques for rice
2. Knowledge transfer between UoE and KKU to establish KKU as a centre for photosynthetic phenotyping in Thailand
3. Provision of training and enhanced capacity building in physiological techniques and plant phenotyping for the KKU rice community
4. Development of inexpensive phenotyping tools for a number of end users including rice researchers, rice breeders and rice farmers
5. Demonstration of these innovative technologies to stimulate uptake by the academic, agricultural and agricultural policy communities