The most lethal foe for rice in Africa is blast, a stem and sheath disease that causes huge losses to farmers.
Dr Jimmy Lamo, the main rice breeder in Uganda, has released nine varieties of high-yielding rice that are both resistant to this devastating disease and drought tolerant. Eight of these varieties have been commercialised.
For his PhD research project, Lamo also looked at grain shattering, the process whereby the rice plant disperses its seed. For this research, a suction device that pulls grains off the anthers was needed and Lamo designed and built his own rice anther suction device, that uses an ordinary household vacuum cleaner.
In addition, he developed a hand-held single grain tester, which is efficient, cheaper and more suitable for field studies than the laboratory tester.