TRADITIONAL farming methods scored a point against high-tech monoculture this
week. Christopher Mundt of Oregon State University, Corvallis, and his
colleagues in China and the Philippines persuaded farmers in Yunnan Province in
China to plant different rice varieties side by side in the same fields,
alongside plots that contained only one strain.
The most sought-after variety of rice in China is the 鈥渟ticky鈥� rice, but this
is highly susceptible to a fungal disease called blast and so is only planted in
small areas. But when sticky rice was planted alongside other more resistant
varieties in the trial, the yield was a dramatic 89 per cent higher, while blast
infection was 94 per cent less severe (Nature, vol 406, p 718).
Martin Wolfe of Wakelyns Agroforestry in Suffolk says the approach makes more
sense than using identical genetically modified crops. 鈥淭here鈥檚 so much untapped
diversity out there,鈥� he says.
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