Jauhar Ali Shabir Hussain Wani Editors Physiological, Molecular Breeding and Genetic Perspectives
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Jauhar Ali Shabir Hussain Wani Editors Rice Improvement Physiological, Molecular Breeding and Genetic Perspectives Rice Improvement Jauhar Ali • Shabir Hussain Wani Editors Rice Improvement Physiological, Molecular Breeding and Genetic Perspectives Editors Jauhar Ali Shabir Hussain Wani Hybrid Rice Breeder, Senior Scientist II, Assistant Professor/Scientist, Mountain Leader, Hybrid Rice Breeding Cluster, Research Centre for Field Crops Head, Hybrid Rice Development Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Consortium (HRDC) Sciences and Technology International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, India Metro Manila, Philippines This book is an open access publication. ISBN 978-3-030-66529-6 ISBN 978-3-030-66530-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66530-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Dedicated to the 60th Anniversary of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and to the global rice research community. Foreword Rice is one of the most signifcant cereal crops globally, intertwined with food and human culture. Ninety percent of the rice produced and consumed in Asia is linked to poverty. Rice is a model crop for geneticists, physiologists, and biotechnologists. The recent advances in their areas got a boost from the sequenced 3000 rice genomes that are placed in the public domain for exploitation and will provide greater depth and a more complete picture of the genetic information. A deeper understanding of rice physiology, molecular breeding, and genetics could pave the way for more sustainable varietal products for the beneft of humanity, particularly for those living in the developing world. On this subject, the editors of this book have attempted to highlight rice research advances in the felds of physiology, molecular breeding, and genetics, with a focus on increasing productivity, improving biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and improving the nutritional quality of rice. This book offers a balanced set of chapters after the authors in the opening chapter give an overview of the advances in genetics and breeding of rice. It is widely understood that increasing plant biomass and its effcient translocation to the sink hold the key to increasing grain yield. Another chapter targets the strategies for engineering photosynthesis for enhanced plant biomass production. It is vital to use the green traits concerning multiple abiotic and biotic stresses, including water- and nutrient-use effciencies. Breeding of climate-resilient rice varieties could effectively provide insurance to rice farmers to combat against climatic turbulence. Hybrid rice technology is becoming the most viable option to meet global food security concerns as it assures a 20–25% yield advantage over the best inbred varieties. It faces two major chal- lenges for its wide-scale adoption. First, heterosis per se needs to be attractive for farmers by assuring them a stable yield advantage of >25% over inbred varieties besides addressing market requirements. Second, the higher hybrid rice seed repro- ducibility (>3 t/ha) and decreased production costs should be attractive to the seed industry. In this regard, two-line hybrid rice breeding is reclaiming attention to make rice hybrids more heterotic and more effcient for hybrid seed production. This two-line hybrid technology is likely to reach farmers in a big way at an afford- able cost. In recent times, irrigation water scarcity for agriculture, particularly for rice, requires the development of water-use-effcient and drought-tolerant rice culti- vii viii Foreword vars. Understanding drought physiology and developing drought-tolerant varieties are the need of the hour. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic showed a massive shortage of labor for transplanted rice that has sparked interest in adopting direct- seeded rice (DSR) in many parts of India and other rice-producing countries. However, systematic breeding for DSR is still in its infancy. The development of DSR varieties with the appropriate set of traits such as anaerobic germination, her- bicide tolerance, weed competitiveness, effective germination under deeper seed placement, and uniform seedling establishment can help improve and popularize this technology. The use of DSR varieties and associated genetics and management technologies is going to improve rice cultivation with less water without losing grain yield. Also, there will be a considerable decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and a decrease in global warming to some extent. Increasing global temperatures are going to cause havoc to agriculture in particular, and breeding heat-tolerant varieties is going to be a challenging task while sustaining current yield rates. Global climatic aberrations are causing more areas to experience cold spells, par- ticularly in temperate regions, where higher rice productivity is attained. Breeding for rice varieties with tolerance of low-temperature stress is another important objective to be fulflled. Many parts of the world are facing toxic elements such as arsenic entering into the food system. In many places in Eastern India and Bangladesh, rice is being cultivated in arsenic-polluted environments. It is impor- tant for breeders to develop suitable rice varieties that would restrict arsenic from entering into rice grain and straw, thereby making this rice safer for human con- sumption and straw for cattle. Likewise, breeding for tolerance against insect pests and diseases is an area of much concern, especially under the changing climatic scenario that is triggering the evolution of new pathogen strains and leaving rice more susceptible than ever. Molecular approaches to breed varieties with insect pest and disease resistance are essential and provide an opportunity for using broad-spectrum resistance genes. However, with the recent advances in genome editing tools, it will be relatively easier to incorporate tolerance by understanding the molecular basis of this toler- ance. To maximize the genetic gains, researchers are attempting to speed up breed- ing in many crops. Recent technological innovations promise to accelerate the growth and life cycle of the rice crop considerably to allow four generations per year. Interestingly, another powerful alternative technology is doubled haploids (DH), which could fx segregating lines in less than 6 months. Scaling up of the DH approach is one of the most important approaches and using new genetic technolo- gies around this could be a game changer for future breeding programs. Rice is often linked to poverty in many parts of the world, where it constitutes the primary source of calories. Hidden hunger arises when essential nutrients such as zinc and iron are missing from a staple diet. Therefore, an increased effort is required for the biofortifcation of rice varieties with adequate concentrations of zinc and iron by mainstreaming rice breeding itself. Foreword ix I would like to congratulate the editors of this book for bringing out a valuable collection of chapters concerning the most important aspects of rice research. This book will serve as a vital reference tool of beneft to rice scientists, students, policy- makers, and other researchers in academia and industry. Gurdev S. Khush FRS Member US National Academy of Sciences Adjunct Professor Emeritus University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA Former Head, Plant Breeding Genetics and Biotechnology, IRRI Los Baños, Philippines Preface The global human population is rapidly increasing. This is placing enormous pres- sure on all available natural resources needed to feed 9.7 billion people by 2050, which poses a severe threat of hunger and chaos to all of humanity in the coming decades. The food security situation will become worse with global climatic aberra- tions. Rice, among the staple