The Philippines is close to setting a world record for hybrid rice yield as the dry harvest nears and with a Nueva Ecija farmer expecting as much as 22 metric tons (MT) per hectare of harvest.

"We will not be happy with less than 20 tons," said Alfonso G. Puyat, inventor and president of Philippine Orchards Corp (POC).

Puyat and his partner farmer Fernando Gabuyo Jr. can hardly wait to begin reaping this March or early April when a new hybrid rice variety, SL-9 developed by pioneering hybrid seed firm SL Agritech Corp. (SLAC), shows off its yield capability.

The SL-9 rice plant has an unusually long panicle of about 16 inches and can give as much as 600 grains per panicle. It is expected to have 22 to 25 tillers and 350 to 450 grains per panicle (a low range) with 85 to 88 percent field grains. The variety is now under testing in 10 sites including in Lubao and Guagua towns, in Pampanga and San Antonio, Talavera, San Jose (Gabuyo's farm), and Cabiao in Nueva Ecija.

"I got the best and lousiest farmers, both doing direct seeding and transplanting. It grows well in all," Puyat said in an interview during the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC) Farmers' Night.

The world record in hybrid rice yield is now held by China which has produced 18.4 MT hectare. The Philippines' current record held by Gabuyo who came in with 17.3 MT per hectare followed by farmer Aida Badong of Baao, Camarines Sur with a 17.2 MT yield as a last year's dry season yield.

While it took China at least two decades to achieve its record, SLAC Chairman Henry Lim explains the Philippines may break this record just within five years since it embarked in this technology.

The country's hope of elimination of huge rice imports and eventual rice sufficiency anchor on the hybrid rice technology which enabled the Philippines to post a one million MT increase in rice output in 2004 or to a record 14.6 million MT.

"We are importing P25-billion worth of rice. That's the worst embarrassment of all," said Puyat.

Much of the sentiment in the hybrid rice propagation also rests in its capability to uproot the Filipino farmer from abject poverty.

"I feel that the real economic recovery is to increase the economic power of farmers," he said.

Authorities explain that much of the record-breaking yield is attributed to fertilization as much as to the rigorous research on rice varieties for which entrepreneurs like Lim invested in for nearly 10 years.

Puyat said organic fertilizers are use at Gabuyo's farm which harness rice straws of the previous crop as fertilizer when decomposed using 100 grams of inoculant (Philor Xemas) which speeds up decay of the raw matter to two weeks compared to two to six months without it.

Supplementation is also done with X-Rice, a water solution silicon-based fertilizer enhancer. Sixty to 75 percent of the fertilizers is organic and only 25 to 40 percent is inorganic.