Solophos fertilizer improved rice plant growth in aerobic soil

Yield decline of continuous monocropping of aerobic rice is the major constraint to the wide adoption of aerobic rice technology. This study was conducted to determine if solophos fertilizer could be used to reverse the yield decline of this cropping system using pot and micro-plot experiments. The soil for the pot experiment was collected from a field where aerobic rice has been grown continuously for 11 seasons at the IRRI farm. Four rates (4, 6, 8, and 10gpot^) of solophos application were used in the pot experiment. Micro-plots (1×1m) were installed in the field experiment where the 12^-season aerobic rice was grown. Treatments in the micro-plots were with and without additional solophos application. Solophos rate was 4, 407.5kg ha^ which was equivalent to 10g solophos pot^ used in the pot experiment. An improved upland variety, Apo, was used for both pot and micro-plot experiments. Application of solophos significantly increased plant height, stem number, leaf area, chlorophyll meter reading, root dry weight, and total biomass in the pot experiment. The growth en-hancement by solophos application was also observed in the micro-plot experiment under the field conditions. Photosynthetic rate and spikelet number per m^2 were increased by solophos application in the micro-plot experiment. Although the mechanism of growth promotion by solophos application is not clear, this study suggested that solophos application could be used as one of crop management options that could minimize the yield decline of continuous monocropping of aerobic rice.Original Pape

Impact of personality functioning and pathological traits on mental wellbeing of older patients with personality disorders

BACKGROUND: Although personality disorders are common and consequential, they are largely ignored in geriatric mental healthcare. We examined the relative contributions of different aspects of personality disorders and comorbid mental disorders to the impairment of mental wellbeing in older adults. METHODS: Baseline data were used of 138 patients who participated in a randomized controlled trial on schema therapy for geriatric mental health outpatients with a full or subthreshold cluster B or C personality disorder. Personality was assessed according to both the categorical and dimensional model of DSM-5. Aspects of mental wellbeing assessed were; psychological distress, positive mental health, subjective health, and life satisfaction. The current study uses baseline data of the RCT to examine the associations between different aspects of personality pathology and mental wellbeing by multivariate regression analysis, controlling for age, sex, level of education, and number of chronic somatic illnesses. RESULTS: The vast majority of patients (79.0%) had one or more mental disorders in addition to personality disorder. Personality pathology was responsible for the core of the mental health burden experienced by patients, and negated the influence of co-occurring mental disorders when entered subsequently in multivariate analysis. Personality dimensions proved to be highly predictive of mental wellbeing, and this contrasted with absence of influence of personality disorder diagnosis. Although the personality functioning dimensions – and in particular Identity integration (large effect size with partial eta-squared = 0.36) – were the primary predictors of mental wellbeing, personality trait dimensions added significant predictive value to that (Disinhibition 0.25 and Negative affect 0.24). CONCLUSIONS: Personality disorders seriously affect the mental wellbeing of patients, and this overshadows the impact of comorbid mental disorders. In particular personality functioning and pathological traits of the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) of DSM-5 contribute to this impact on mental wellbeing. Alertness for and treatment of personality disorders in geriatric mental healthcare seems warranted. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-022-03857-8

Helping feed the world with rice innovations: CGIAR research adoption and socioeconomic impact on farmers

Rice production has increased significantly with the efforts of international research centers and national governments in the past five decades. Nonetheless, productivity improvement still needs to accelerate in the coming years to feed the growing population that depends on rice for calories and nutrients. This challenge is compounded by the increasing scarcity of natural resources such as water and farmland. This article reviews 17 ex-post impact assessment studies published from 2016 to 2021 on rice varieties, agronomic practices, institutional arrangements, information and communication technologies, and post-harvest technologies used by rice farmers. From the review of these selected studies, we found that stress-tolerant varieties in Asia and Africa significantly increased rice yield and income. Additionally, institutional innovations, training, and natural resource management practices, such as direct-seeded rice, rodent control, and iron-toxicity removal, have had a considerable positive effect on smallholder rice farmers’ economic well-being (income and rice yield). Additional positive impacts are expected from the important uptake of stress-tolerant varieties documented in several Asian, Latin American, and African countries

GRiSP Partnership in Motion

The CGIAR Research Program for Rice, known as the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP), is a partnership coordinated by six research-for-development organizations that bring together over 900 partners from the academic, public, private, and civil society sectors with a stake in the rice development sector. It is noteworthy that the “P” in the GRiSP acronym stands for “partnership” and not for “program.” Embedded within GRiSP are many “subpartnerships,” such as consortia, networks, platforms, and time-bound projects. Some partnerships are decades old and now aligned with GRiSP’s mission and objectives, while other partnerships have just recently been established to serve a specific purpose along GRiSP’s impact pathway toward development. All partners are, in one way or another, bound together by a common mission of poverty alleviation, rice food securi-ty, and environmental sustainability and protection. Some partners work on a global scale, while others work in particular watersheds, villages, or small communities. Some partners work at the grass-roots level, trying to improve the livelihoods of smallholder rice farm-ers through hands-on participatory action, while others work with rice genes in advanced laboratories in countries where no rice is even produced or very little is eaten. How does one bring together over 900 partners from such a wide background in a globally coordinated approach to rice research for development? What are the partner-ship mechanisms and structures that operate under GRiSP? How do the GRiSP coordinating partners align GRiSP’s strategy and activities with those of rice-growing nations and with regional multinational development bodies? This document attempts to give some answers to these questions and to shed light on the functioning of the many partnership arrangements under GRiSP. It serves as a stock-taking exercise from which lessons can be drawn to improve GRiSP as a global partnership mechanism in the years to come. This document also serves as an input to the GCARD Road Map,1 and the GRiSP partnerships described herein follow up on the commitments made at the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 2012

GRiSP: Global Rice Science Partnership

Presented by Bas Bouman, GRiSP Director at the CGIAR Funders Forum, Punta del Este, Uruguay, 2 Nov 201