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Report
No.230806 |
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- Science and Technology - |
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NIAS Discovers a Gene to Keep Paddy from Falling National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS) identified a gene in Japonica-type rice that works to keep paddy from falling. If introduced into Indica-type rice widely grown in South-east Asia etc. with their natural tendency of easy shattering off of paddy, it could lead to development of high yielding varieties. The discovery was publicized on the online version dated April 13 of the U.S. magazine, 'the Science.' The discovery is a result of joint research by NIAS, Society for Techno-innovation of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences. Japonica-type rice started being cultivated about 10 thousand years ago at around the mid-stream areas of the river Chang Jiang or Yang Zi Jiang. During the period from those times to about three thousand years ago when Japonica rice came over to Japan, the type underwent the process of mutation and the character to keep paddy on the grass was naturally selected, it is considered. NIAS and other institutions used an Indica-type paddy 'Kasalath' and a Japonica, 'Nipponbare' to elucidate which genes are at work in making the difference in how easy or difficult it is for the paddy to remain on the grass. As a result, they have given a name 'qSGH1' to the gene which they found to be a main cause of paddy shattering off and reached a conclusion that the paddy of Japonica 'Nipponbare' will not easily fall off because the variety lost the functioning of that gene. They even found that the difference in a base of single DNA determines whether the gene functions or not. NIAS says that "a key was found not only to develop high-yielding Indica-type rice but also to elucidate how it is that crops like buckwheat are susceptible to falling of grains." |
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