IRRI LONG -TERM EXPERIMENTS (LTE)

Inspired by the Green Revolution, IRRI proactively begun looking at the sustainability of intensive rice cropping systems in the 1960s with the long-term vision of determining the interactions among different components of the rice ecosystem.

IRRI has always been at the forefront of rice research using more advanced rice varieties, fertilizer management, irrigation approaches, and modern pest control methods in its Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE). It is among the few "classical" long-term experiments, being the world's longest-running triple rice cropping experiment. After almost 60 years, IRRI is still leading in what is now called sustainable agricultural intensification.

Initiated by the Deputy Director General for Research through the Long-Term Experiments Oversight Committee (LTE-OC) , the IRRI LTE was launched as a common research experiment resource for all IRRI researchers in 2017. Its operation and management are relatively stable and maintained at minimum costs. IRRI researchers are now conducting multi-disciplinary measurements and observations in these experiments, including data gathering using remote sensing and its calibration. A data access policy is now in place to allow the free use of these long-term datasets in addressing current sustainability questions towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This makes it an even rarer data resource because research around sustainability requires experiments which have been running for a minimum of ten years. IRRI LTCCE is now on its 58th year while the IRRI Rice Upland Crop Rotation Experiment (RUCRE) is on its 27th year.