Where they breed paddy for over a century

Right in the middle of the paddy fields on Thondamuthur Road is an ochre, tile roofed room whose walls bear witness to the works of a few great men, who ensured food for the masses.

And it is in this room the Paddy Breeding Station was born over a century ago. It will soon become a museum showcasing the history of paddy breeding since the British Raj. And, at present, the room is part of the Department of Rice, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU).

Vice-Chancellor K. Ramasamy says that the room will have old implements, photographs, paintings and everything that will bring alive the paddy breeding work that has been going on since 1912, starting with F.R. Parnell, who arrived here as the government economic botanist to collect paddy varieties. Thus was born the modern Indias first paddy breeding station.

The Imperial Government did establish another paddy breeding station in 1911. But, that is in Dakha with the new name, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute.

S. Robin, Head of the Department of Rice, says Parnells job was to collect various paddy varieties in South India, study and document them.

They had the help of an artist, whose paintings are intact and fresh even today and appear as good as photographs.

The museum to-be has a photograph showing the receipt of Valwadam paddy variety from the tahsildar of Bezawada (Vijayawada) on October 1903. Mr. Robin says that though the Imperial Government established the breeding station only in 1912, the work started at least a decade earlier.

The room also has old glass slides with picture negatives of paddy varieties to be projected and shown during seminars, a gold-plated microscope, equipment used in paddy collection, century-old books containing drawings of various paddy varieties and much more.

He says that Parnell, his successor R.O. Iliffe and his successor K. Ramiah and a few others collected close to 2,500 traditional paddy varieties from the Indian sub-continent.

To date, the university has the varieties stored in the Ramiah Cold Storage Bank.

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Where they breed paddy for over a century