Opportunities for increasing water productivity of CGIAR crops through plant breeding and molecular biology.

Abstract

This paper focuses on the opportunities for increasing crop water productivity through breeding. The first section takes a general look at water use by plants and by farmers and the implications of these uses for water productivity at the crop level. The second section discusses the opportunities for increasing water productivity by focusing on four types of trait (minimize non-transpirational uses of water in agriculture, reduce transpiration without reducing production, increase production without increasing transpiration, and use of cheaper water and less water management). The third section focuses of breeding for drought tolerance and the prospects for improving breeding efficiency through genomics.

Strategies for Boosting Rice Yield in the Face of Climate Change in India

“…The commendable work on sequencing the rice genome has great significance in understanding the function of genes and their manipulation for rice improvement. Research efforts are under way to make C3 rice perform like C4 plants through efficient assimilation of carbon via recombinant DNA technology and use of prospective genes, such as phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) [44,45]. Therefore, it is essential to tailor new varieties that can adapt to the adverse effects of climate change and still have high yield.…”

Land degradation and water productivity in agricultural landscapes.

“…This illustrates the perceived 'biological imperative' that to produce more biomass, more water is required for transpiration. Given that it is now thought that the scope for further increases in harvest index seems small, even with biotechnology (Bennett, 2003), where might we identify opportunities to continue to increase water productivity in agriculture?…”

Growing more rice with less water

“…Breakthroughs in understanding of the molecular biology of plants, however, such as the successful sequencing of the rice genome, have led to optimism about future progress. Bennet (2003), for example, provides a thorough-and quite optimistic-overview of the potential for breeding plants for improved drought, salinity, waterlogging and submergence tolerance. These new rice plants will probably take another 10-15 years, however, to show up in farmers' fields.…”