Flood Tolerant Rice Varieties Passes Field Trials

Filed in archive Food and Agriculture , Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics on November 23, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Thammarat Kaosombat

Several submergence-tolerant or "waterproof" rice varieties have passed field trials recently, and are now close to official release by national and state seed certification agencies in Bangladesh and India, according to reports.

A specific gene called Sub1A has been isolated and using marker-assisted breeding techniques, and has been shown to confer tolerance to normally intolerant rice plants, enabling them to recover and yield well even after up to 2 weeks of complete submergence. The potential impact of these new flood-resistant varieties is expected to be enormous, considering the rice farming regions that suffer major floods each year. These new Sub1 varieties are NOT genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and are therefore not subject to the regulatory testing that can delay release of GMOs for several years.