High-yield hybrid rice is a boon throughout Asia, not only for the increased yield but for its responsiveness to fertilizer and its adaptability to diverse environments. However, with these positive attributes comes a higher susceptibility to diseases as well as insect pests. Datta and colleagues describe here their development of a transgenic rice line, Minghui 63, and its derived hybrid, Shanyou 63, that express a Bt fusion gene truncated from CryIA(b) and CryIA(c), under the control of the rice actinI promoter. Field evaluation of both homozygous and heterozygous hybrids of the transgenic plants showed strong resistance against extremely high, repeated infestations of two important lepidopteran pests, yellow stem borer and leaffolder, with little or no effect on yield (see p. 1101).