Studies on Water-Saving and Drought-Resistance Rice (WDR)

Water-saving and drought-resistance rice (WDR) is a new type of rice with not only high yields and good quality as the current paddy rice, but also water-saving and drought -resistance as the upland rice. WDR’s water-saving ability mainly refers to effective utilization of water resource in the process of growth and development of plant. While WDR’s drought resistance mainly refers to the capacity to maintain the higher water status to achieve the normal metabolism in water stress condition

To understanding the genetic base of drought resistance of rice, the integrated efforts had been made in the past years. firstly, a field screen facility and evaluation method on drought resistance was established and several hundred rice accessions were evaluated and identified showing different level drought resistance. Secondly, Genetic dissection on drought resistance was conducted to identify major QTLs and understand the genetic base. Thirdly, fifty-six candidate genes were cloned and over-expressed in rice cultivars. The functional genomics studies indicated that they are involving different physiological pathways. Fourthly, The Ecotilling method was used to analyze the diversity in the promoters of transcription factor families as well as the genes. The epigenetic approaches was also applied to investigate the function of miRNA and DNA methylation.   

In order to developing WDR variety, both conventional and molecular approaches were applied to integrated water-saving and drought resistance capacity mainly from the traditional upland to the commercialized paddy rice cultivars. The effective and successful selection for yield and its related agronomic components were achieved under both stress and non-stress environments. Several WDR varieties was registered and released to farmers, showing great yield increase in the water-limited area.