No abstract

Drought stress is a major constraint to rice (Oryza sativa L.) production and yield stability in many rainfed regions of Asia, Africa, and South America. The genetic improvement of adaptation to drought is addressed through the conventional approach by selecting for yield and its stability over locations and years. Because of low heritability of yield under stress and inherent variation in the field, such selection programs are expensive and slow in attaining progress. The objective of this paper is to review the current knowledge in physiology and molecular genetics which have implications in breeding for drought resistance in rice. The ability of root systems to provide for evapotranspirational demand from deep soil moisture and capacity for osmotic adjustment are considered major drought resistance traits in rice. However, selection for these traits still entail extensive investments in field nurseries or greenhouse facilities and is prone to problems of repeatability because of environmental variability. Recent development of molecular linkage maps of rice and other advances in molecular biology offer new opportunities for drought resistance breeding. Molecular markers linked to root traits and osmotic adjustment are being identified, which should lead to marker‐assisted selection. Transgenic rice plants having tolerance to water deficit and osmotic stresses have been reported. Work on genetic engineering of osmoprotectants, such as proline and glycine betaine, into the rice plant for drought tolerance improvement is in progress. Close collaboration between molecular geneticists, plant physiologists, and breeders is needed to critically assess the contribution of specific genes and application of molecular genetics to breeding for drought resistance in rice and other crops.

No abstract

Rice is used as a model cereal to study drought response at the molecular level, with the goal of applying results to other cereals. To assess the relevance of results from rice to other species, the kinetics of drought development and plant response of tolerant and susceptible tropical rice (Oryza sativa L.) and subtropical wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars were compared under vegetative and reproductive stage drought in pot experiments. Water was withheld during reproductive stage until plant available soil moisture content was 30 % of field capacity (FC) or leaf wilting was observed, and then reapplied. Rice reached 30 % FC 9 days after withholding water and wheat after 13 days. Before rewatering, both species reached leaf water potentials of −12 bars and similarly low transpiration rates. Stress reduced leaf relative water content, leaf elongation and membrane stability. When water stress was imposed during reproductive stage, pollen fertility was most affected in wheat, while panicle exsertion and anther dehiscence were severely affected in rice. When water stress was imposed during vegetative stage, wheat was less affected to vegetative stage drought than rice. The nature of differences between tolerant and susceptible cultivars was similar for the two species. However, the differential growth habitats and growth rate of plants needs to be considered in these kinds of experiments.

Rice is one of the most important food crop drastically affected by drought in lowland rice ecosystem. Dissecting out the traits of importance and genomic regions influencing the response of drought tolerance and yield traits on grain yield will aid the breeders to know the genetic mechanism of drought tolerance of rice leads to the development of drought tolerant varieties. Grain yield and its components on drought situation of recombinant inbred population (IR 58821/IR 52561) were investigated under lowland managed stress situation in 2003 and 2004 by given importance to the relative water content. Water deficit resulted in significant effect on phenology and grain yield. Best lines were selected for further varietal development programme. Variability studies showed the traits viz., days to 70% relative water content, leaf rolling, leaf drying, harvest index, biomass yield and grain yield offer high scope for improvement for drought tolerance by way of simple selection technique. Correlation and path analysis indicated that, to harness high yielding combined with drought tolerance breeders should give selection pressure on relative water content, panicle length, grains per panicle, harvest index, biomass yield, root/shoot ratio and root length in positive direction, and low scores of leaf rolling, leaf drying and drought recovery rate. Analysis of quantitative trait loci for drought tolerance, yield and its components allowed the identification of 38 regions associated with both drought tolerant and yield traits. Out of these, 18 were closely linked with DNA markers could be used for marker assisted selection in breeding for drought tolerance in rice. Pleiotropism and G · E effects interaction were noticed in some of the traits. Parent IR 58821 contributed favorable alleles for the entire drought related and most of the yield component traits. Identification of traits of Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006importance and their nature of relationship by morphological and molecular level under lowland condition will be useful to improve drought tolerance of rice.