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Introduction
Rice is an essential crop for food security, poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods in Asia. Over 2 billion people obtain 60-70% of their food energy from rice. About four fifths of the world’s rice is grown by small-scale farmers in low income countries. Rice production employs 1 billion people and is essential to the economic development of rural areas in India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia. Drought and high salt concentrations in soil are major constraints to agricultural production in Bangladesh and India. As the population in Asia increases, farmers are under pressure to produce more rice on less available arable land. In India, thirty three percent of the agricultural area receives less than 750mm rainfall and is chronically drought-prone, and thirty five percent of the area with 750-1125mm rainfall is also subject to drought once in four to five years. Thus, 68 percent of the total sown area covering about 142 million hectares is vulnerable to drought conditions. Moreover, India accounts for nearly 47% of saline, 20% of sodic and 7% of acid sulphate soils of tropical Asia. The application of biotechnology to introduce stress-tolerant genes into crop plants may be effective in addressing the problems associated with drought and high salinity. Prof. Ray Wu’s laboratory at Cornell University has demonstrated that stress tolerance in plants can be induced by manipulating the genes that are responsible for the accumulation of the sugar “trehalose.” ABSPII has been instrumental in negotiating the transfer of the trehalose genes to researchers in India and Bangladesh. The genes are currently being introduced into locally adapted rice varieties. If this strategy proves effective, ABSPII will support commercialization so that seed will be available to resource-poor farmers.
Project Manager: K Vijayaraghavan, Regional Coordinator, South Asia
Participating Countries: Bangladesh, India
Partners
Technology: The technology, developed by Prof. Ray Wu at Cornell University, involves manipulating the genes required for synthesis of the naturally occurring sugar trehalose. This system is designed such that the bioengineered genes are specifically “turned on” when the plant is under drought or salt stress.
Project Status: INDIA DST Rice partner i.e. International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) drought and salinity in rice with initial success established in over expression of Trehalose that confers the salinity and drought tolerant trait in rice. ICGEB will be screening the TPSP +ve lines and Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) will confirm and validate the promising TPSP +ve lines for salt tolerance and Directorate of Rice Research (DRR) and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) will continue transformation work with TPSP gene construct for generation of more transgenic events and generation advancement from already confirmed plants/lines through PCR/Southern/ Western analysis. Partners will carry out strip trials for event selection for drought and salinity tolerance using standard protocols.
Expected Benefits:
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