Rice Researcher Of The Year
Dr. Arlene Adviento-Borbe, USDA ARS, Research Agronomist, Delta Water Management Research Unit, Jonesboro, Arkansas, has been named the 2023 Rice Researcher of the Year at the 26th Annual National Conservation Systems Cotton & Rice Conference, Southern Precision Ag Conference, Southern Soybean & Corn Conference, and the Delta States Irrigation Conference.
Adviento-Borbe earned a BS in Agriculture specializing in Soil Science from the University of the Philippines, a MS in Soil Science with minor in Environmental Sciences at the International Rice Research Institute, University of the Philippines and a Ph.D. in Agronomy from the University of Nebraska.
Much of Adviento-Borbe’s research occurs on farms where she has worked with rice producers in Arkansas and California as well as companies such as Riceland, RiceTec, Kellogg’s, MARS Food, Arva Intelligence, New Leaf Symbiotics and consultants.
Prior to joining the agricultural research service, Adviento-Borbe conducted research at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines for ten years. She is an internationally recognized authority on the measurement and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. As such, she was invited to testify before the National Academy of Sciences in 2018. Her team was the first to report that the cumulative emissions from furrow-irrigated rice are similar to those of conventionally-flooded rice. This is good news for the rice industry as farmers are rapidly adopting this labor and water saving practice. Moreover, she was part of a team of U.S. researchers that screened over 320 rice varieties for tolerance to high nighttime temperatures. As part of this NSF project, the team discovered two genes that appear to stabilize rice yield under elevated high night temperatures. The next step of this project is to determine how rice breeders can use these to improve heat tolerance in U.S. rice varieties and hybrids. She has trained dozens of future rice researchers over her distinguished career.
Adviento-Borbe has been recognized with numerous awards including: 2020 recipient of the Conservation Innovation Award at the 75th Soil and Water Conservation Society International Annual Conference, Distinguished Rice Research and/or Education Team Award at the 37th Rice Technical Working Group Meeting in Long Beach, CA, 2018, American Society of Agriculture and Biological Engineers (ASABE) Blue Ribbon Award Educational Aids Competition during the 2018 ASABE annual meeting in Detroit, MI, 2018. ∆