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Africa assists rice germplasm improvement

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Title Africa assists rice germplasm improvement
 
Creator Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
 
Description Most modern rice varieties currently grown in Latin America come from a few parents closely related to those that were used to launch the Green Revolution in Asia. As a result the genetic base is dangerously narrow. This poses the risk that if their resistance is broken, or if a pest or disease to which they are highly susceptible appears, there could be a major disaster.

To help broaden the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT's) rice germplasm diversity, over 1200 landraces and improved breeding lines from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria, and the Institut de Recherches Agronomiques Tropicales et des Cultures Vivrieres (IRAT), France, were sent to CIAT's Rice Programme in Colombia during 1981-86.

IITA lines combine thick, deep roots, blast resistance and tolerance to acid soils, with lodging resistance. Lodging is a problem in savanna ecosystems such as the Brazilian Cerrados where rice is rotated with high-input crops such as soybeans. Residual fertility from soybeans makes the rice grow so tall that it lodges.

The exchange of germplasm between Latin America and Africa has not been in one direction. The very useful variety IRAT 216 resulted from a cross between line Col 1, developed by the Colombian Agricultural Research Institute (ICA), and IRAT's M312A. In 1990, 14 lines developed by ClAT's savanna project entered the African INGER upland trials conducted in West African countries.

CIAT, Publication Unit Apartado 6713, Cali, COLOMBIA
Most modern rice varieties currently grown in Latin America come from a few parents closely related to those that were used to launch the Green Revolution in Asia.
 
Date 2014-10-08T13:41:04Z
2014-10-08T13:41:04Z
1991
 
Type News Item
 
Identifier CTA. 1991. Africa assists rice germplasm improvement. Spore 34. CTA, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
1011-0054
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/45565
 
Language en
 
Relation Spore, Spore 34
 
Publisher CTA
 
Source Spore