A joint study team, made up of Qian Qian, a research fellow of the Rice Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Japanese scientists, has cloned out the world first quantitative trail loci (QTLs) able to increase rice grain productivity. Combining genetic analysis techniques and conventional crop planting techniques, scientists have produced a new rice strain for both high yields and lodging resistance. The finding was published in the recent issue of journal Science.
QIAN told reporters that scientists have successfully cloned genes relating to rice yield in a process of analyzing rice genes. The high yield gene is able to make rice grow more vigorously with an apparently increased number of grains, which adds to the subsequent yield. However, such rice may tend to be a heavy head on light stalks, vulnerable for lodging. To address the conflicts between high yield and lodging resistance, scientists mated the high yield genes with lodging resistant genes, and eventually produced two super-rice strains claiming higher yield while resistant to lodging on relatively shorter stalks. Comparing with the finest Japanese rice species in lab, the new strains produced a yield 23% higher than the compared, with equally fine quality.
QIAN pointed out that the finding makes another new breakthrough in increasing grain quantity, in addition to the discovery of the impacts of cytokinin on rice yields. Scientists believe that the finding is a credit to genetic studies relating to corn and wheat yield, as crop plants share many common features in their genomes. |
