Rice breeder joins University of Arkansas

Christian De Guzman has joined the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture 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 years before joining the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the Division of Agriculture research arm. While there, he focused mostly 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 (http://bit.ly/AAES-AgProfile2020), published by the Division of Agriculture.

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.