Rice, Rice, and More Rice!

Hello again, readers!

     So as you can see in our previous post, we had scrumptious lunch and got tour around the Museum of Natural History. After that, we then left to visit the International Rice Research Institute or IRRI. Now before we begin our journey, you might be wondering “what is IRRI?” Well, according to IRRI's official website, 

“IRRI, or the International Rice Research Institute, is a nonprofit independent research and training organization. IRRI develops new rice varieties and rice crop management techniques that help rice farmers improve the yield and quality of their rice in an environmentally sustainable way.”

     So in shorter words, IRRI is a research center where they grow and develop new types of rice and teach the farmers how to handle rice so that the farmers can improve the yield and quality of their rice.

     Okay, going back to our visit, as we boarded again in the bus, you could feel the curiosity forming in our minds, “what is in IRRI?” We, of course, expected that we were going to learn more about rice and it’s composition and properties. We were excited to learn about rice since it has always been part of our meals. But other than that, we did not know what we were going to learn about.

     Alas, we reached IRRI and entered its doors. Upon our arrival, we were sent to an auditorium. In the auditorium, we were showed a video. We learned, in the video, about rice, just like we expected. We learned that there are rice shortages around the world so we should not waste our precious rice. But sometimes, there are also over rice productions and it can also be a catastrophe because the rice that is not needed by the people will rot in storage. We, of course, also learned more about the institute itself, IRRI.

So here’s an organism that we met: RICE!

Reader, meet rice. Rice, meet reader.

Okay, so moving on. Here are some facts about rice.

1. Name

Common name: Rice

Scientific name: Oryza sativa

A rice plant
Oryza sativa

2. Characteristics

   We chose rice because it is a very important staple food for most of the human population especially to us Asians. And we chose rice because we love rice, suman, bibinka and all those Filipino kakanins!

3. Ecological Relationship

     Rice is a producer because it makes its own food by photosynthesizing. Farmers harvest them so they can be used for human consumption.

That’s all for now! Hope you had a fun time reading! Stay tuned for our last destination in our Los Baños, the Makiliing Botaical Garden.