Wild rices in Thailand
1989
Songkran Chitrakon (Department of Agriculture, Bangkok (Thailand). Rice Research Inst.)
Thailand contains a wide diversity of rice germ plasm. Different types of rice are distributed throughout the country. Six wild rice species exist in Thailand, namely, Oryza rufipogon, O. nivara, O. fatua, O. officinalis, O. ridleyi and O. granulata. The wild related species, O. rufipogon, O. nivara and O. fatua are frequently found every where and are usually known as weeds in paddy fields. However, the endangered species, O. officinalis, O. ridleyi and O. granulata are very rare in natural habitats. Most utilization of wild rice has been successful in transferring pest and disease resistant genes to cultivars. However, in Thailand work has been rather limited, due to constrains of time, labour, funding, as well as specialists. Wild rice collection is a difficult task due to the various flowering dates, high grain shattering and high sterility of the wild rice species. As a result, testing and evaluation of desirable characters has not been widely conducted. Wild rice seed has to be rejuvenated prior to seed conservation. Hence, it requires much time and effort. At present, the National Rice Seed Storage Laboratory for Genetic Resources conserves the six wild species, in a total of 610 accessions for further use in the future.
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