Hybrid rice for mechanized agriculture
2003
Walton, M.
Hybrid rice breeding in the United States has been done primarily by RiceTec Inc., which has established a collaboration agreement with the Chinese National Hybrid Rice Research Center at Changsha, Hunan. The latter provides RiceTec with exclusive access to CMS and EGMS line germplasm. Restorer lines are based upon South China indica sources that are traced in large part to materials developed by the International Rice Research Institute. U.S. cultivars that are derived primarily from tropical japonica germplasm are used extensively as pollen parents for RiceTec's two-line rice hybrids. In 2000, RiceTec released XL6 as its first rice hybrid ever commercialized in the U.S. This hybrid yielded about 10 t ha¯¹ (about 20% higher than the best U.S. varieties). However, it suffered from high lodging and poor milling factors, preventing it from achieving a significant market share. In 2002, two new hybrids, XL7 and XL8, were released, these have less lodging and better milling quality. XL7 is also several days earlier than any variety currently grown in the market and offers producers the option of producing a ratoon crop or planting after wheat. XL8 competes with two leading long-grain varieties, Cocodrie and Wells, which account for 80% of the southern U.S. long-grain production. Challenges to the mechanization of hybrid rice in the U.S. are discussed in this paper.
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