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Chinese research team may have cracked secret to crossbreeding Asian and African rice

Scientists identified three genes that make it hard to combine the two varieties – and also highlighted a possible solution

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China has invested heavily in the development of new varities of rice and other crops. Photo: Shutterstock
Dannie Pengin Beijing
Chinese scientists have identified a genetic barrier that makes it hard to crossbreed African and Asian rice varieties – a discovery that could lay the foundations for creating high-yielding hybrids.

While both Asian and African cultivated rice varieties have distinct strengths, crossing them often produces offspring with sterile pollen and low yields.

A research team has now identified three genes that act as a barrier to reproduction – and also a possible way round the problem.

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“This discovery provides an important theoretical foundation and valuable genetic resources for breaking the reproductive barrier between rice species and breeding new, ultra-high-yielding hybrid rice varieties,” the official China Science Daily reported last Friday.

Such Asian-African crosses “could potentially increase yields by more than 10 per cent compared with existing Asian hybrid rice varieties”, one of the authors of the study told the newspaper.

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