Climate-Smart Rice

Abstract

Rice is grown in a huge range of locations across over 160 million hectares of the planet, from the cool temperate regions of Northeast Asia, through low-lying river deltas in the tropics, to lofty Himalayan mountain slopes at altitudes of over 2 kilometres. To produce each kilogram bag of Basmati rice, the climate-warming equivalent of over a kilogram of carbon dioxide (mainly in the form of methane) is also emitted. Along with some nitrous oxide from the use of nitrogen fertilisers on the fields, the life-cycle emissions can top 1.5 kilograms per kilogram. In Britain rice wastage amounts to over 40,000 tonnes each year and so the equivalent of around 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Drought, flood, heat and disease are all major risks that may be exacerbated by climate change. Loss of irrigation water supplies due to melting of glaciers in the Himalayas is a major concern for rice growers in South Asia. Improved water management can give greater resilience to climate change and radically reduce methane emissions at the same time.

Altering Stomatal Density for Manipulating Transpiration and Photosynthetic Traits in Rice through CRISPR/Cas9 Mutagenesis

“…The climate projections indicate an increased frequency in the occurrence of extreme weather events, thus affecting the rice yields significantly [4][5][6]. Hence, it has become important to develop the 'climate-smart' rice varieties that can alleviate the risk of crop failures due to extreme weather events [1,7,8].…”