[Source: UA News] – A University of Arizona-led consortium has been awarded $9.9 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a deeper understanding of the wild relatives of cultivated rice with the ultimate goal of creating next-generation varities that are better capable of withstanding drought and poorer soils and produce higher yields than current forms of domesticated rice.
The main goals are to study the genes of different wild rice species and identify genes that could be used to improve the crop.
Cereal crops – including rice – provide 60 percent of the calories and protein harvested worldwide, said UA plant scientist Rod Wing, who is director of the Arizona Genomics Institute in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, holder of the Bud Antle Endowed Chair for Excellence professor in the School of Plant Sciences and a member of the BIO5 Institute.
For more information: UA-Led Group Awarded $9.9M to Develop ‘Super Rice’