Dr. Christian De Guzman hired as rice breeder for UA System of Agriculture
by October 6, 2020 2:14 pm 682 views
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture has hired Dr. Christian De Guzman as an assistant professor and rice breeder at the Rice Research and Extension Center.
De Guzman was a rice breeder and researcher at Southeast Missouri State University’s Rice Research Farm in Malden for four previous year. While there, he focused on long-grain rice, including making crosses for heat and drought tolerance.
“Arkansas is the number one rice producing state in the nation, producing about half of the rice grown in the U.S.,” said Nathan Slaton, associate vice president for agriculture and assistant director of the experiment station.
Rice contributed $1.021 billion in cash farm receipts to Arkansas’ agricultural economy in 2018, according to the 2020 Arkansas Agricultural Profile.
“The Division of Agriculture is committed to supporting Arkansas’ agricultural economy,” Slaton said. “We have a long tradition of rice research and breeding to support the state’s growers. I’m confident that Dr. De Guzman will continue that tradition as we look to develop new, improved rice cultivars, in long- and medium-grain varieties and advance our work in hybrid rice.”
De Guzman began working in agricultural research in 2001 as a technical assistant. Later he was a junior plant breeder for corn at East-West Seed Company in the Philippines. After that he was a visiting research associate at the LSU AgCenter before beginning his doctoral studies.
He earned his bachelor of science degree in agriculture at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños, Laguna, and his Ph.D. in agronomy, with an emphasis on plant breeding, at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.
After completing his Ph.D., De Guzman joined Southeast Missouri State University before coming to Arkansas.
While focusing primarily on long-grain rice breeding and genetics, De Guzman will also collaborate with RREC rice breeding colleagues Xueyan Sha and Ehsan Shakiba to advance medium-grain and hybrid varieties.
De Guzman brings with him a scientific protocol he developed at Missouri to screen breeding lines for heat tolerance, an essential trait for improving grain quality during periods of high nighttime air temperatures. He also began making crosses to develop drought tolerance while at Missouri. He said such rice would be well-suited to row rice production.