Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs
Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Although rice production has doubled in the last 30 years as a result of the development of high-yield, widely adaptable, resource-responsive, semi-dwarf varieties, the threat of a food crisis remains as severe as it was 60 years...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2017-04-01
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| Series: | Agronomy |
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| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/7/2/27 |
| _version_ | 1818921493624520704 |
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| author | Nitika Sandhu Arvind Kumar |
| author_facet | Nitika Sandhu Arvind Kumar |
| author_sort | Nitika Sandhu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Although rice production has doubled in the last 30 years as a result of the development of high-yield, widely adaptable, resource-responsive, semi-dwarf varieties, the threat of a food crisis remains as severe as it was 60 years ago due to the ever-increasing population, water scarcity, labor scarcity, shifting climatic conditions, pest/diseases, loss of productive land to housing, industries, rising sea levels, increasing incidences of drought, flood, urbanization, soil erosion, reduction in soil nutrient status, and environmental issues associated with high-input agriculture. Among these, drought is predicted to be the most severe stress that reduces rice yield. Systematic research on drought over the last 10 years has been conducted across institutes on physiology, breeding, molecular genetics, biotechnology, and cellular and molecular biology. This has provided a better understanding of plant drought mechanisms and has helped scientists to devise better strategies to reduce rice yield losses under drought stress. These include the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for grain yield under drought as well as many agronomically important traits related to drought tolerance, marker-assisted pyramiding of genetic regions that increase yield under drought, development of efficient techniques for genetic transformation, complete sequencing and annotation of rice genomes, and synteny studies of rice and other cereal genomes. Conventional and marker-assisted breeding rice lines containing useful introgressed genes or loci have been field tested and released as varieties. Still, there is a long way to go towards developing drought-tolerant rice varieties by exploiting existing genetic diversity, identifying superior alleles for drought tolerance, understanding interactions among alleles for drought tolerance and their interaction with genetic backgrounds, and pyramiding the best combination of alleles. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-20T01:38:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ad7de0aee0dd4616ab0018b2069a9028 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2073-4395 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-20T01:38:32Z |
| publishDate | 2017-04-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Agronomy |
| spelling | doaj.art-ad7de0aee0dd4616ab0018b2069a90282022-12-21T19:57:57ZengMDPI AGAgronomy2073-43952017-04-01722710.3390/agronomy7020027agronomy7020027Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding ProgramsNitika Sandhu0Arvind Kumar1International Rice Research Institute, DAPO BOX 7777, Metro Manila 1301, PhilippinesInternational Rice Research Institute, DAPO BOX 7777, Metro Manila 1301, PhilippinesRice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Although rice production has doubled in the last 30 years as a result of the development of high-yield, widely adaptable, resource-responsive, semi-dwarf varieties, the threat of a food crisis remains as severe as it was 60 years ago due to the ever-increasing population, water scarcity, labor scarcity, shifting climatic conditions, pest/diseases, loss of productive land to housing, industries, rising sea levels, increasing incidences of drought, flood, urbanization, soil erosion, reduction in soil nutrient status, and environmental issues associated with high-input agriculture. Among these, drought is predicted to be the most severe stress that reduces rice yield. Systematic research on drought over the last 10 years has been conducted across institutes on physiology, breeding, molecular genetics, biotechnology, and cellular and molecular biology. This has provided a better understanding of plant drought mechanisms and has helped scientists to devise better strategies to reduce rice yield losses under drought stress. These include the identification of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for grain yield under drought as well as many agronomically important traits related to drought tolerance, marker-assisted pyramiding of genetic regions that increase yield under drought, development of efficient techniques for genetic transformation, complete sequencing and annotation of rice genomes, and synteny studies of rice and other cereal genomes. Conventional and marker-assisted breeding rice lines containing useful introgressed genes or loci have been field tested and released as varieties. Still, there is a long way to go towards developing drought-tolerant rice varieties by exploiting existing genetic diversity, identifying superior alleles for drought tolerance, understanding interactions among alleles for drought tolerance and their interaction with genetic backgrounds, and pyramiding the best combination of alleles.http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/7/2/27droughtmarkerpyramidingQTLsricegenomics |
| spellingShingle | Nitika Sandhu Arvind Kumar Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs Agronomy drought marker pyramiding QTLs rice genomics |
| title | Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs |
| title_full | Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs |
| title_fullStr | Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs |
| title_short | Bridging the Rice Yield Gaps under Drought: QTLs, Genes, and their Use in Breeding Programs |
| title_sort | bridging the rice yield gaps under drought qtls genes and their use in breeding programs |
| topic | drought marker pyramiding QTLs rice genomics |
| url | http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/7/2/27 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nitikasandhu bridgingthericeyieldgapsunderdroughtqtlsgenesandtheiruseinbreedingprograms AT arvindkumar bridgingthericeyieldgapsunderdroughtqtlsgenesandtheiruseinbreedingprograms |