GURDEV SINGH KHUSH

Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush is one of the world's authorities on crop breeding, and a major force behind the development of productive rice varieties. He is often referred to as one of the fathers of the Green Revolution in rice farming.
Dr. Khush was born a son of a farmer in the village of Rurkee, in Punjab, India, in 1935. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in science, major in plant breeding, from Punjab Agricultural University, he continued his studies through a scholarship at the University of California, Davis, where he gained his Ph.D. in genetics in less than three years. Dr. Khush then spent seven years at the University of California, Davis, studying the cytogenetics of tomatoes.
In August 1967, he joined the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) as a plant breeder and immediately began to make his mark on food production in a hungry developing world. In less than five years, he became the head of IRRI's plant breeding department and had developed his own new variety of "miracle rice." He has key roles in developing more than 300 rice varieties in IRRI’s race to keep rice production ahead of population growth.

One of them, IR36, was released in 1976, and has since become the most widely adapted variety of rice. Planted on more than 11 million hectares in Asia in the 1980s, IR36 yields an additional five million tons of rice a year, boosting rice farmers’ incomes. IR36 is a semi-dwarf variety that has proved highly resistant to a number of major insect pests and diseases, saving millions of dollars in insecticide costs.

IR36 matures rapidly -- 105 days compared to 130 days for IR8 and 150-170 days for traditional types -- and produces a slender grain that is preferred in many Asian countries. IR64 later replaced IR36 as the world’s most popular rice variety, and IR72, released in 1990, became the world’s highest-yielding rice variety.

In his 34 years at IRRI, Dr. Khush has become one of the world’s most decorated scientists. Among the honors he received are the Japan Prize (1987), World Food Prize (1996), Wolf Prize from Israel (2000), Padma Shri Award from India (2000), and China International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Award (2001).
The Nobel laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug, has summed up Dr. Khush ’s career by saying, “The impact of Dr. Khush ’s work upon the lives of the world’s poorest people is incalculable.”

http://www.worldfoodprize.org/Laureates/Past/1996.htm

http://www.jic.bbsrc.ac.uk/events/
agric2020/html/khush.html

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