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USA – FLOOD-TOLERANT RICE
New flood-tolerant rice could help farmers and environment
30 November 2006. Source: Mercury News via AgNet
DAVIS, Calif. - Inside a greenhouse on the University of California, Davis campus, a group of rice plants is defying conventional farming wisdom and thriving in a formerly life-threatening environment - under water.
The story says that a new variety of flood-tolerant rice soon could make its way from the lab to the field, offering California rice farmers and environmental advocates a potential weapon against both crop-ravaging weeds and water pollution.
The research is the product of a 20-year-old collaboration between UC Davis, UC Riverside and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. The team isolated a gene within certain traditional rice plants that allows them to survive complete submergence. Researchers then cloned the gene and implanted it into commercially viable rice plants.
The result was a new variety that can survive under water for up to two weeks. Rice plants typically will die if completely submerged for more than a few days.
Pamela Ronald, a UC Davis-based rice geneticist who has been working on the project for about a decade, was quoted as saying, "This gene has actually been known for about 50 years, but researchers were unable to make use of it because it is thought to be quite complex."
The new plants could benefit the state's rice industry, said Tim Johnson, president of the California Rice Commission. California ranks only behind Arkansas among rice-producing states, with an annual export profit of $200 million.
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