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Plant biology

Genetics of high-rise rice

Nature volume 460, pages 959–960 (2009)Cite this article

When subject to flooding, deepwater rice survives by shooting up in height. Knowledge of the genetic context of this and other responses to inundation will be a boon in enhancing rice productivity.

Rice — the seed of Oryza sativa — feeds billions. Although productivity per hectare has more than doubled since the 1960s, a further doubling will be necessary to meet projected requirements by 2050 (refs 2, 3). More than 30% of Asian and 40% of African rice acreage is cultivated in either lowland paddies (15–50 centimetres deep) or deepwater paddies (depth of more than 50 cm). But lack of control of water depth in rain-fed paddies can be a serious problem: in some areas, water levels rise progressively during the growing season and can reach several metres; in others, flash flooding can fully submerge plants for days or weeks. High-yielding rice varieties cannot survive either extreme of inundation. As a result, some flood-prone areas are planted with traditional local varieties that display a remarkable capacity for flooding-induced elongation — of up to 25 cm per day — or that can tolerate submergence for up to 15 days. But the high-yielding varieties are typically five times more productive than these flood-tolerant plants.

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Figure 1: Ethylene and flooding-tolerance strategies in rice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laurentius A. C. J. Voesenek is at the Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH, Utrecht, the Netherlands. l.a.c.j.voesenek@uu.nl ,

    Laurentius A. C. J. Voesenek

  2. Julia Bailey-Serres is at the Center for Plant Cell Biology, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA. serres@ucr.edu ,

    Julia Bailey-Serres

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  1. Laurentius A. C. J. Voesenek
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  2. Julia Bailey-Serres
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Voesenek, L., Bailey-Serres, J. Genetics of high-rise rice. Nature 460, 959–960 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/460959a

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