Food: "Rainy Day Rice" are you aware of this?

[Ed1]

Asian farmers will get a disaster-proof version of an essential crop.
After years of testing in muddy fields, genetically enhanced flood-resistant rice is about to hit agricultural markets in tropical Asia, following Indonesia, with India and Bangladesh up for approval later this year. Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam are expected to follow suit.

It's a major step forward for weatherproof crops, increasingly touted as essential to the long-term future of the world's food supply. Advances in biotechnology have improved this ancient grain, which accounts for up to 70 percent of daily calories for people living in Asian countries. Imperiled by constant floods, rising sea levels and natural disasters, submerged rice survives just four days when deprived of light and oxygen. These new varieties last eight to 18 days.

The advance is urgently needed. "At least [58,000 square miles] of land in South and Southeast Asia are vulnerable to flooding, and floods will only increase," says Dave Mackill, a senior scientist with Manila's International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). In 2007, Cyclone Sidr destroyed 1.25 million tons of rice in Bangladesh; last year, multiple typhoons wiped out rice paddies in Vietnam.

To find a suitable template for the flood-resistant rice, Mackill turned to India's water-tolerant FR13A rice. Farmers stopped using the strain because of its poor yield, but its resilience intrigued him. To pinpoint the part of the rice genome carrying the trait, Mackill crossbred a hardy derivative of FR13A with another rice strain and derived 4,000 other rice plants from that cross. Geneticist Pamela Ronald of the University of California at Davis then searched the plants' DNA and unearthed Sub1A, a gene that triggers the grain to conserve energy when it is underwater. To create the final rice strain, Mackill cross-pollinated a Sub1A-containing plant with a high-yielding, better-tasting Indian rice variety.

In the coming years, IRRI researchers will supplement Sub1-class rice with a gene that resists flooding during the sensitive germination stage (something the Sub1 genes can't do). Also on the agenda: drought- and salt-resistant rice, now testing in nearly every Southeast Asian tropical country and China. Asia's inland and coastal areas often have salt-filled soil, which stunts rice growth.

The IRRI has already made its rice seed available to other research institutions and has been distributing it to Asian farmers for free. When sold by other seed growers on the commercial markets, the price should rival that of common varieties. "We anticipate adoption wherever submergence is a regular problem," Mackill says. If the rice is a success, climate-resistant crops may spread across the developing world, as well as the developed.

http://indica.ucdavis.edu/news/rainy-da ... a-disaster

[Michaelangelica]

Also a salt tolerant rice

New rice hybrid grows on salty lands
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2008-10-14 08:02
A Chinese scientist announced Monday in Shenzhen that he has successfully developed hybridized rice that could grow in salina - land areas or bodies of water encrusted with crystalline salt.

"The experiment in Shandong province showed the hybridized rice could survive in salina, and the output for 1 mu (about 667 sq m) of land could reach 360 kg," Zhu Peikun, inventor of the technology, said.

Ordinary rice died when researchers attempted to grow it on the same land, he said.

He began studying the possibility of hybridizing Spartina - a plant species commonly known as "cord grass" that flourishes in coastal salt marshes - with rice in 2003.
'"Our goal wasn't to develop a rice variety that appeared like cord grass but rather, one that lived like cord grass," he said.

"China has about 1.48 billion mu of salina, nearly three-fourths of its total cultivatable land. If my invention could be applied, it could help dramatically increase the country's grain output."

In addition to rice, he also developed a hybrid of corn with cord grass chromosomes able to grow in salina.

He planted the hybridized corn in Shaanxi province in 2007 and reaped about 390 kg per mu.

http://en.ce.cn/National/stech/200810/1 ... 5889.shtml

Now we just need a rice for Australia that grows without any water. :drinkers:

[Ed1]

Michaelangelica

Thank You for sharing,
. . . I didn't know about the Salt land Rice discovery.
Is there a way to get these discoveries
. . . into the hands of people
. . . who need them the most?

[Michaelangelica]

Michaelangelica

Thank You for sharing,
. . . I didn't know about the Salt land Rice discovery.
Is there a way to get these discoveries
. . . into the hands of people
. . . who need them the most?

I am sure that is the aim
There is an International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines with offices in a dozen other countries.
I think they do struggle for funding though.
http://beta.irri.org/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=414

What's New
We are hiring!
Click to read story IRRI is looking for scientists and postdoctoral fellows who can help: * develop rice that grows with less water * enrich rice with iron and zinc * increase rice production by improving its photosynthetic activity * analyze and understand the micro and policy aspects of rice economics ... and do much more! Join our team of 1,000 premier scientific and support staff who are building a better world through rice science!

New, higher-yielding rice plant could ease threat of hunger for poor
News & Events (Press Releases)
Click to read story Los Baños, Philippines – An ambitious project to re-engineer photosynthesis in rice, led by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) through a global consortium of scientists, has received a grant of US$11 million over 3 years from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a result of research being conducted by this group, rice plants that can produce 50% more grain using less fertilizer and less water are a step closer to reality.

Finding solutions to the (p)rice crisis
Fiinding Solutions to the Price Crisis by Trina Mendoza
The global crisis of high rice prices rocked rice-growing Asia in 2008, and scientists have been working to calm the storm. International rice prices soared from US $ 400 per ton in January 2008 to more than $ 1,000 per ton in May 2008. Major exporters Vietnam and India cut back exports to ensure enough rice for their domestic needs. In some countries, food riots led to soldiers guarding food trucks to prevent looting.

Both countries are striving for rice self-sufficiency amidst growing populations and loss of prime agricultural land.
Put simply, the world has been consuming more rice than it is producing. Rapidly rising and fluctuating fertiliser prices in 2008 have made the effective management of fertilizers and nutrients vital for raising rice productivity n hard-hit countries of the rice crisis like the Philippines and Indonesia.
Read full story.

International Rice Research Institute Library
Maintains a collection of more than 100000 items dealing with the production and distribution of rice.

http://beta.irri.org/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=414

In Australia we have our own problems due to the slow death of the Murray Darling River system -the eighth largest in the world with 40% of Australia's birds

As Australia dries, a global shortage of rice - ...
17 Apr 2008 ... But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill ...
www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/17/business/17warm.php

[Michaelangelica]

Gene's past could improve the future of rice
. . .
In an effort to improve rice varieties, a Purdue University researcher was part of a team that traced the evolutionary history of domesticated rice by using a process that focuses on one gene
. . .
About 10,000 years ago, humans began making their own genetic modifications, albeit unknowingly, by choosing plants that had favourable traits. As they stopped growing plants with unfavourable characteristics, genes responsible for those traits disappeared.

'Humans knew that if the seeds stayed on the plant, or it had a higher yield, they could save some of the seeds to plant next year,' Jackson said. 'That was unintentional breeding.'

Those favourable genes are still around in wild rice species because they were valuable for plants in other climates or situations, he said.

http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/arti ... uture-rice

[Ed1]

Michaelangelica

Thank You for sharing.
these links are Great!

[boorerberongal]

Well , I have been worrying all day about the demise of "Yobarnie" at North Richmond. But did you know
that Lieutenant Bowen used to grow rice in the Burralow Creek Area in the 1840's ?