Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush

Golden Sickle Award 2007
Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush
Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush, one of the heroes
of green revolution, was raised on a small
farm in Punjab, India. He received B.Sc.
degree from Punjab Agricultural University
in 1955 and Ph.D. in 1960 from the University
of California, Davis. After serving as a
faculty member of the University of California
for seven years, he joined International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines
as Plant Breeder, and was appointed a Head
of Plant Breeding Department in 1972. He
Dr. Khush has made outstanding contributions
to advancing the frontiers of rice genetics.
He has trained numerous plant breeders and
served as consultant to several national rice
improvement programs.
retired in February 2002 as Principal
Plant Breeder and Head of Division of Plant
Breeding Genetics and Biochemistry. During
his 35 year career at IRRI he spearheaded
the program for developing high yielding,
disease and insect resistant and short
duration varieties of rice which ushered
in green revolution in rice farming. These
varieties and their progenies are now
planted to about 60% of world’s rice land
resulting in food security, environmental
sustainability, political stability and prosperity
For his contribution to food security Dr.
Khush received Japan Prize in 1987, World
Food Prize in 1996, Rank Prize in 1998
and Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2000. He
received honorary doctorate degrees from
ten universities, the latest being from Ohio
State University. Dr. Khush was elected to
the Indian National Science Academy, Third
World Academy of Sciences, U.S. National
Academy of Sciences and Royal Society of
London.
particularly in Asia
www.biotec.or.th

Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush and his team developed
over 300 rice varieties, including IR36, IR64
and IR72, which triggered the Green Revolution
in Asia in the 1970s.
According to IRRI estimates, IR36 added about
5 million tonnes of rice annually to Asia’s food
supply accounting for an additional $1 billion
yearly income to Asian farmers. IR64 later
replaced IR36 as the world’s most popular
IR36, known as “Miracle Rice”, was developed
using IR8 as a genetic base and cross
breeding it with 13 parent varieties from
six nations. IR36 is a semi-dwarf variety
variety during 1990s. It has all the good
attributes of IR36 and in addition has highly
palatable grains. IR72, released in 1990, is
world’s highest-yielding rice variety.
with high yield potential and resistance to a
number of the major insect pests and diseases.
It matures in about 110 days compared to 130
days for IR8 and 150-170 days for traditional
rice varieties. It has slender and translucent
grains preferred in many Asian countries. The
combination of these desirable characteristics
soon made IR36 one of the most widely planted
food crop varieties the world has ever known.
It was planted to about 11 million hectares or
25 million acres of rice land during 1980s.
In 1994, Dr. Khush announced the development
of New Plant Type (NPT) popularly know
as “super rice”, which has the potential to
increase yields by 15 percent. After 12 years
of painstaking work Dr. Khush and his team
has developed numerous breeding lines of
NPT. Several NPT lined have been released as
varieties in China, Indonesia and Philippines.
Other countries are doing further breeding
work with NTP.