{"id":3944,"date":"2015-03-04T15:04:09","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.generationcp.org\/sunsetblog\/?p=3944"},"modified":"2016-05-02T14:31:30","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T19:31:30","slug":"the-power-of-rice-unlocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.generationcp.org\/sunsetblog\/2015\/03\/04\/the-power-of-rice-unlocked\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of rice unlocked"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Photo:<\/a>
A woman harvests rice in Ifugao, The Philippines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plant geneticist Sigrid Heuer remembers very clearly entering the transgenic greenhouse in Manila to see her postdoctoral student holding up a rice plant with \u2018monster\u2019 roots.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey were enormous,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThis is when I knew we had the right gene. It confirmed years of work. That was our eureka moment.<\/p>\n

So massive was the effect of that gene that I knew we had the right one.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This genetic discovery \u2013 described in more detail a little later \u2013 is one of the shining lights of the 10-year-long CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme (GCP)<\/a> established in 2004.<\/p>\n

GCP-supported researchers aimed high: they wanted to contribute to food security in the developing world by using the latest advances in crop science and plant breeding.<\/p>\n

And with the lives of half of the world\u2019s population directly reliant on their own agriculture, there is a lot at stake. Land degradation, salinity, pollution and excessive fertiliser use are just some of the challenges.<\/p>\n

Rice is one of the most critical crops worldwide<\/h3>\n

Amelia Henry, drought physiology group leader at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)<\/a>, explains why rice was such a critical crop for GCP research. She says rice is grown in a diverse set of environmental settings, often characterised by severe flooding, poor soils and disease.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>
Cycling through rice fields in Odisha, India.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Asia, 40 percent of rice is produced in rainfed systems with little or no water control or protection from floods and droughts \u2013 meaning rice plants are usually faced with too much or too little water, and rarely get just enough. In addition, 60 percent (29 million hectares) of the rainfed lowland rice is produced on poor and problem soils, including those that are naturally low in phosphorus.<\/p>\n

Phosphorus deficiency and aluminium toxicity are two of the most widespread environmental causes of poor crop productivity in acidic soils, where high acid levels upset the balance of available nutrients. And drought makes these problems even worse.<\/p>\n

Phosphorus is essential for growing crops. Its commercial use in fertilisers is due to the need to replace the phosphorus that plants have extracted from the soil as they grow. Soils lacking phosphorus are an especially big problem in Africa, and the continent is a major user of phosphate fertilisers. However, inappropriate use of fertilisers can, ironically, acidify soil further, since excess nitrogen fertiliser decreases soil pH.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, high levels of aluminium in soil cause damage to roots and impair crop growth, reducing their uptake both of nutrients like phosphorus and of water \u2013 making plants more vulnerable to drought. Aluminium toxicity is a major limitation on crop production for more than 30 percent of farmland in Southeast Asia and South America and approximately 20 percent in East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and North America.<\/p>\n

\"Rice<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge today is to tap into the genetic codes of key crops such as rice and wheat to feed a growing global population. Science plays a crucial role in identifying genes for traits that help plants tolerate more difficult environmental conditions, and producing crop varieties that contain these genes.<\/p>\n

Plant biologists are already developing new rice lines that produce higher yields in the face of reduced water, increasingly scant fertiliser as costs rise, and unproductive soils. However, \u2018super\u2019 crops are needed that can combine these qualities and withstand climate changes such as increasing temperatures and reduced rainfall in a century when the world\u2019s population is estimated to reach nearly 10 billion people by 2050.<\/p>\n

Bringing the best scientific minds to improve rice varieties<\/h3>\n

Ambitious in concept, the GCP research focussed on bringing together experts to work on these critical problems of rice production for some of the world\u2019s poorest farmers.<\/p>\n

The programme was rolled out in two phases that sought to explore the genetic diversity of key crops and use the most important genes for valuable traits, such as Sigrid\u2019s discovery made in a rice variety that is tolerant of phosphorus-poor soils. Each phase involved dedicated teams in partner countries.<\/p>\n

\"GCP:<\/a><\/p>\n

GCP Principal Investigator Hei Leung, from IRRI, says GCP is unique, one of kind: \u201cI love it.\u201d He says GCP has enabled rice researchers and breeders to embrace cutting-edge science through partnerships focussed on improving crop yields in areas previously deemed unproductive.<\/p>\n

Hei says GCP wanted to target research during its second phase on those crops that most poor people depend upon. \u201cWe wanted to have a programme that is what we call \u2018pro-poor\u2019, meaning the majority of the world\u2019s people depends on those crops,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Rice is the \u2018chosen one\u2019 of GCP\u2019s cereal crop research and development, with the biggest slice of GCP\u2019s research activities dedicated to this, the most widely consumed staple food.<\/p>\n

It is crucial to increase rice supplies by applying research and development such as that carried out by GCP researchers over the past 10 years, Hei says.<\/p>\n

For more on the relationship between GCP and IRRI \u2013 and an extra sprinkling of salt on your rice (fields) \u2013 see our Sunset Story \u2018Rice research reaps a rich harvest of products, people and partners\u2019<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Relying on rice\u2019s small genome in the hunt for drought-tolerance genes<\/h3>\n

Researchers had been trying to map the genomes of key cereal crops for over two decades. Rice\u2019s genome was mapped in 2004, just as GCP started.<\/p>\n

Rice has a relatively small genome, one-sixth the size of the maize genome and 40 times smaller than the wheat genome. This makes it a useful \u2018model\u2019 crop for researchers to compare with other crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like to compare with rice because wheat and maize have very big genomes, and they don\u2019t have the resources,\u201d explains Hei.<\/p>\n

After the rice genome had been sequenced, the next step was to focus down to a more detailed level: the individual genes that give rice plants traits such as drought tolerance. Identifying useful genes, and markers that act as genetic \u2018tags\u2019 to point them out, gives scientists an efficient way to choose which plants to use in breeding.<\/p>\n

One of GCP\u2019s Principal Investigators for rice was Marie-No\u00eblle Ndjiondjop, a senior molecular scientist with the Africa Rice Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRice is becoming a very important crop in Africa,\u201d she says. \u201cProduction has been reduced by a lot of constraints, and drought is one of the most important constraints that we face in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meet Marie-No\u00eblle below (or on YouTube<\/a>), in our series of Q&A videos on rice research in Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n