Herry Utomo, Steve Linscombe and Ida Wenefrida
Rice Research Station, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Louisiana, USA
Rice is a crop that feeds billions of people around the world, particularly in Asia and Africa. Adaptable to a wide range of environmental conditions from river deltas at sea level to mountainous regions, rice can be grown in both irrigated and rain fed systems. In addition to increased efficiency in rice culture through pest and disease control, land leveling, and efficient fertilization, water use, and harvesting, some rice breeding programs have successfully developed new cultivars with a steady yield increase in the past 10 years. In the U.S., for example, the average annual increase is at an approximate rate of 1.4% (0.1 ton ha-1). Demands for rice are strong, as an additional 116 million tons will be needed by 2035 due to the growing world population. Without area expansion, an annual yield increase of about 1.4% world-wide will be needed. Although rice serves mainly as an energy food, its nutritional value has been realized and is becoming increasingly important. Incorporation of high protein and other grain nutritional properties in modern high yielding rice will provide some solutions to solve malnutrition problems associated with the world’s population growth. A better understanding of mutational techniques, genomics, and an increased efficiency in sequencing and genotyping, have provided essential tools to incorporate high nutritional properties into high yielding rice. A number of potential high yielding rice lines with improved nutritional quality have been successfully developed through biotechnological approaches. Genomic sequencing was applied to determine target genes corresponding to the nutritional changes. The information will improve the understanding of how the traits are regulated and provide the basis for efficient incorporation into future high yielding rice varieties.