TABUK, Kalinga - Already declared the leading hybrid rice-producing province in terms of production per hectare, Kalinga is gearing for a major shift to hybrid from inbred rice technology starting this coming cropping season.

This developed as agriculture officials here set the target areas to be planted to hybrid rice in the province this coming cropping season at 8,132 hectares, which is way above the 2,800 hectare target for the present, 92 percent to which was achieved.

Provincial hybrid rice coordinator Rosalina Gapasen told the Manila Bulletin that the target is attainable because starting in next cropping, the bulk of government seed subsidy will go to hybrid rice.

"The seed subsidy for inbred which was for 7,500 hectares this cropping season will be reduced to 1,500 hectares with the balance converted to subsidy for hybrid rice," Gapasen said.

Under its seed subsidy program, the government shoulders P1,400 for each hectare for the F1 or Mestizo variety which is produced by Philrice and roughly the same amount for the Bigante and SL-8 varieties produced by private companies.

Philrice San Mateo Branch Manager Vic Casimero said recently that Kalinga holds the distinction of being the most productive when it comes to the F2 commercial rice. It averages 160 cavans per hectare and is second when it comes to the production of F1, the parent seed of F2.

Attracted by the experiences of the pioneer F1 seed producers in the province some of whom tripled their income from each hectare in the last cropping season, 126 farmers from the municipalities of Tabuk, Pinukpok and Rizal are currently undergoing training in the planting of the AxR, the parent seeds of the F1 variety.

In the last cropping, some AxR seed producers in the province almost doubled the national average yield of 800 kilos per hectare and in the process netted more than P100,000.00 per hectare which is a far cry from the average of P30,000 they profited by planting inbred varieties.

Philip Doclan, one of the pioneer AxR farmers in Tabuk who planted four hectares last cropping season and a half hectare this season, cautions though that not all local farmers who went into F1 seed production succeeded, and this is due mainly to their inability to strictly follow the technology.

"F1 production, aside from being expensive and laborious, is very risky especially during the wet season. For one, if its raining during the pollination period, instead of the pollen, the rain will fill the opened grains resulting in failure of pollination. The germination is also affected if the harvested seeds are not dried right away," Doclan said.

At the moment, Tabuk farmers who braved the odds are grappling with the problems resulting from the low quality of the AxB seeds, the parent seed of the AxR, which they obtained from Philrice.

Doclan said that the seeds are so impure that they are pulling out around 40 percent of the plants from the fields to protect the quality of their production.

"The Philrice should strictly implement the standards for hybrid seed production all over the country so as not to cause farmers unnecessary problems," Doclan said.

He also said that during that last cropping, many farmers in the Tabuk Valley who planted F1 were affected when the seed distributed by Philrice had very low-germination percentage.

"We learned that the seeds were produced by a private company and not by farmer cooperators of the PhilRice. We are wondering why the Philrice obtains seeds from private companies when we have enough trained individual hybrid rice seed producers. We also do not know why the produce of the private companies is apparently not subjected to the same quality control standards as ours," Doclan said.