Japan discovers new drought-resistant rice variety
According to the journal Nature Genetics published on August 4, a group of Japanese biologists has bred a new rice variety with deep roots that can maintain high yields even in drought conditions.
A team of experts from the National Institute of Agrobiological Research (NIAS) in Tsubaka said they have found a special gene in a rice variety grown in the dry highlands of the Philippines.
Illustration photo. (Source: ctysdag.com)
This rice variety, called Kinandang Patong, has deep roots that grow straight down, reaching deep into dry soil towards water, in contrast to the shallow, slanting root system of typical rice varieties grown in flooded fields.
The gene from the deep-rooted rice variety DR01 was inserted into the IR64 rice variety, which is very popular in Asia. The new rice variety was then grown in rice fields under three different conditions: non-drought, moderately drought, and severely drought.
Normally, under moderate drought conditions, the yield of IR64 is reduced to only 42% compared to non-drought conditions. But with IR64 rice combined with the DR01 gene, the yield is almost unaffected.
In severe drought conditions, IR64 yield was almost completely lost, while in severe drought conditions, the yield of the new rice variety was only reduced by about 30%.
The United Nations estimates that the world's population will reach 9.6 billion by mid-21st century and 10.9 billion by 2100, up from 7.2 billion today.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), in order to provide enough food for humanity in the context of increasingly severe floods and droughts, there needs to be a comprehensive campaign against food waste, the rational use of land, water, fertilizers, and pesticides, as well as promoting new inventions in the agricultural sector to create high-yield rice varieties that can withstand harsh weather conditions./.
According to (TTXVN) - VT
