The person who contributed to the world's best ST25 rice brand

Research on mango tree roots

Dr. Tran Tan Phuong shared that his starting point was farming, attached to the fields since he was a child. After graduating from university and completing his master's thesis on fragrant rice varieties, he officially entered the path of selecting rice varieties. His doctoral thesis also continued to revolve around the theme of fragrant rice, demonstrating his deep attachment to this field.

Through the research process, Dr. Phuong found that Soc Trang province used to own many delicious rice varieties but had the disadvantage of low productivity and could only grow 1 crop/year. Therefore, breeding fragrant rice varieties but still ensuring high productivity, can be grown 2-3 crops/year is extremely necessary.

Recalling the time when he started work more than 20 years ago, Dr. Phuong said that at that time, the whole country seemed to only focus on productivity but ignored fragrant rice varieties.

To create fragrant rice varieties, we have to overcome a huge barrier. The goal is to ensure that fragrant rice can be grown in 2-3 crops per year, for high productivity and especially disease resistance and disease resistance, Dr. Phuong shared.

In 2003, his research team officially entered the breeding stage. When it first started, the group had only 3 people, no laboratories, had to rent fields, even work under mango trees or in greenhouse houses containing beans.

In the difficult early days, the group still tried their best to breed. From simple combinations of 2-3 parents, they gave rise to varieties such as ST11, ST12. Later, each group had dozens of parents to integrate the fragrance, softness, resistance to pests, and beautiful bean shape. Thanks to that, ST24 and ST25 varieties were born.

ST25 - The crystallization of decades of creating

The ST25 rice variety won the title of "World's Best Rice" in 2019 and will continue to be honored in 2023 as the result of a process of implementation and evaluation that has lasted for decades.

Mr. Phuong said that ST25 inherited and developed from intermediate complexes such as ST11, ST19. In particular, ST19 is of good quality but is susceptible to rectal diseases, leading to the improvement to ST20. However, ST20 has not yet been widely developed in the provinces. After many improvements, ST25 was born with all its outstanding characteristics: Long, shiny, fragrant, flexible shape - "like a model", according to Mr. Phuong's metaphor.

Mr. Phuong shared that the process of breeding high-quality fragrant rice varieties is oriented by signals from the market, especially through close cooperation with Labor Hero, Engineer Ho Quang Cua, who has accompanied him in researching and approaching the market. From practical feedback, the group has developed a plan to collect rice varieties from many regions across the country and around the world.

Dr. Phuong said that his initial goal was only to serve farmers in Soc Trang and did not want to grow in other provinces. However, the demand from other regions is increasing, especially from the Central, Central Highlands and the North, the research team has expanded the scope of seed development by continuing to improve.

To date, ST25 variety is not only associated with Soc Trang fields but has been widely grown across the country.

Walking in the fields is like going to the flower garden

Currently, he and his colleagues are focusing all their efforts to select new rice varieties from more than 3,000 varieties collected domestically and internationally and more than 20,000 hybrid groups are still waiting to be evaluated each crop, it is expected to take 2 - 3 years to complete.

"We dream of creating rice varieties that make farmers happy like taking care of flowers. When you go to the fields and find them beautiful, fragrant, and proud, that is the highest goal of agricultural scientists - Dr. Phuong affirmed.