Researchers at the University of Oxford and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered a new gene that improves the yield and fertilizer use efficiency of rice.
The worldwide late-20th century ‘Green Revolution’ saw dramatic year-by-year increases in global grain yields of rice and other cereals. The Green Revolution was fueled by new high-yielding dwarfed Green Revolution Varieties (GRVs) that are still in widespread use today, and by increased fertilizer use.
The numbers of grain-bearing branches (‘tillers’) per plant are increased in GRVs, and further enhanced by increased nitrogen fertilizer use, thus boosting grain yield. However, fertilizers are costly to farmers and cause extensive environmental damage. Developing new GRVs combining increased tiller number and grain yield with reduced nitrogen use is thus an urgent global sustainable agriculture goal.
A major new study, published today as the cover story of journal Science, led by Professor Xiangdong Fu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, and Professor Nicholas Harberd from the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford, part-funded by the BBSRC-Newton Rice Initiative, has for the first time discovered a gene that can help reach that goal.
Read more at University of Oxford
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