Screening diverse germplasm for response to reproductive-stage drought stress
2009
Los Añes, A.P. | Simborio, F.A.C. | Defontorum, D. | Cairns, J.E., International Rice Research Inst., Los Baños, Laguna (Philippines). Crop and Environmental Sciences Div.
At present, an estimated 20 million ha of rice is Asia is prone to drought, with the severity and frequency of droughts expected to increase. The greatest yield losses are observed when drought stress occurs at the same time that reproductive processes take place. Within the primary rice gene pool is a large amount of genetic diversity that can be tapped to develop drought stress-tolerant varieties. For physiologists, breeders, and molecular biologists to exploit this diversity, appropriate drought screening protocols targeting stress at the reproductive stage are essential to characterize diverse rice germplasm. Large differences in phenology create problems in synchronizing the drought treatment with flowering. Here, the authors report on a study to synchronize drought-treatments in diverse germplasm. Accessions were characterized for phenology in a pre-study. A large variation was observed between accessions in days to flowering; phenology also differed between growing seasons. This information was used to categorize germplasm into maturity groups and sowing of each group was staggered to ensure simultaneous flowering. These protocols are now being applied on a large scale to conduct studies that can link performance under drought with genotype through phenotype associations.
显示更多 [+] 显示较少 [-]