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Building SynergiesGermplasm for Cambodia

Melissa FitzgeraldIRRI & UQ

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Partners

Background

Cambodia• In the 1990s, 34 lines were

released in Cambodia in the CIAP project.

• These were not widely adopted, and since then, a handful of pure line selections from a traditional variety have been released.

• What was wrong with the IRRI lines? Acceptability?

Australia• 10 years of drought placed

a toll on the Australian rice industry.

• Australia investigated re-opening a rice industry in tropical Northern Australia using material from Asia for tolerance to biotic stresses.

• Testing of material in tropical Australia.

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Opportunities

Cambodia• Yield reducers in the rainfed

season.• Now a dry season full of

yield limiting pests and diseases, and need for early generation and new practices.

• Opportunities for improving agronomic traits as well as market traits.

Australia• Exploring a new set of

environmental conditions.• Australia looking for flood

tolerance and resistance to yield reducers and limiters.

• The Australian rice industry is highly mechanised.

• Opportunity to test performance in a mechanised situation.

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Improved germplasm

for Cambodia and Australia

1. Identify current and future germplasm requirements for all participants in the value chain

2. Improved germplasm for different Cambodian rice environments and systems.

3. Identify quality of Cambodian rice and equip CARDI to measure those traits.

4. Evaluate panels of germplasm in different locaations in tropical Australia.

Objectives

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The growing list of traits…..• Drought tolerance• Flood tolerance• Brown plant hopper resistance• Short duration• Quality of rainfed rice• Quality and market information for DS rice.• New agronomic management strategies for DS and RF rice.

– Direct seeding– Fertiliser use– Certified Seed– Pesticide application

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Obj 1. Ask the stakeholders

Farmers Millers Traders Consumers

QualityDurationTolerance

AppearanceBreakage

AppearanceAromaSoftness

AppearanceAromaSoftness

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Objective 2 Cambodian germplasm

Dry Season• Short duration for dry season• Biotic stress tolerance (weeds, BPH)• Quality Wet season• Drought tolerance• Submergence tolerance• Quality

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Screening for drought tolerance

2010398

lines 2011 61

lines 2012 42

lines

Selections made on yield in drought and quality when grown in the upland

The 42 selected lines are now being grown in drought trials at 3 locations

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Pressures of selection

• Best performing line in 2010 drought trial.

• However, it tastes like rancid socks and its texture is like wet cardboard.

• Rejected on the basis of quality.

• A great shame to see such a good plant type lost to the project.

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PhD project- synergistic spin-off• Population between Apo and

IR64 in 2002 resurrected in 2010, purified and multiplied.

• Drought trial now harvested. • Interesting volatile compounds.• Genotyped at 4000 loci,

sensory panel and metabolomic profiling underway.

• Aim to identify tools to put IR64 grain on an Apo plant.

Volatile compoundsIR64 Apo

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Population development for drought

SYNERGY• Pops developed in a

previous project.• Resurrected and

multiplied for this project.

• Now growing in a replicated drought trial at CARDI with harvest in June.

• 8 new crosses made.

PRD/CAR3Gen. #BC3F6 39

BC4F2 23

BC5F2 53

CAR3/PRDGen. #BC3F7 18

BC4F8 1

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Early duration

• Farmers want dry season varieties with early duration so that they can fit in a rainfed crop as well.

• The early duration varieties are all exported to markets on the Arabian Peninsula, but don’t go through the normal export channels.

• Vietnam exports this harvest.• The Arab states primarily consume basmati rice.

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Duration variation

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Screening for duration2011

64 IRRI lines 88 INGER lines

• Selected on yield and duration

201238 at 2 locations 398 lines tested30 incl 2 on farm

• 8 outyielded check, but 10d longer duration.

20128 at 3 locations

197 lines tested

12 INGER66 BPH

• Multiple locations.

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Early duration basmati style

• Basmati quality includes aroma and elongation after cooking (AC) to double that of BC.

• 4 out of 17 aromatic lines elongated with right ratio.

• These 4 are being tested in replicated trials.

BC AC

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Objective 3: Quality of Cambodian rice

• Based on the survey results, IRRI varieties released last century were not accepted by Cambodian consumers.

• Most of IRRI’s fragrant germplasm probably had a basmati parent, and not be acceptable to jasmine consumers.

• New research tools enable fragrance of jasmine and basmati to be identified. 4012 4014 4011 4013 1001 1004 1002 1003

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Pakistan Stored Basmati v s Thai Jasmine using platf orm 'All data combined'

SE Asian jas Basmatis

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Measuring Quality

Training on IRRI’s instruments.

IRRI GQ staff training CARDI staff.

• Aroma, appearance, softness were the important traits.• CARDI now equipped for aroma gene, amylose and appearance

measurement.

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Identifying quality

• In August 2012 F5 seed shipped to IRRI and UQ.

• IRRI will extract DNA and send pop for genotyping (3-4000 loci), and do many measures of quality and rheology.

• Seeds shipped to UQ for metabolomic profiling of compounds for taste and flavour.

• Sensory profiling will be done at IRRI or UQ.• Aim to find QTLs for Cambodian quality.

470 progeny now at F4

PRD/TK

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Spin-off project• In previous project, found

special compounds in KDML105 that are probably in PRD, but are not in all fragrant rices.

• Aim to find genes for these other aromatic compounds unique to jasmine rice.

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In Australia

• Testing Australian and project varieties in Northern Australia.

• Finding good yield, low pressure from biotic stresses in the dry season.

• Genetic and environmental differences in yield and duration under aerobic conditions.

• Need to work out a way to get quality evaluation done outside the quarantine area – me at UQ?

Pandan wangi:Australia: 7.2 t/ha

Indonesia: 3-4 t/ha

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Opportunities for connections- quality

• Most SE Asian countries like Cambodian style rice so any QTLs we find for quality will be useful elsewhere.

• Rice along the Mekong is soft textured and we are on the cusp of identifying the gene that makes them so soft.

• This will have immediate application in SE Asian breeding programs.

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Opportunities for connections-durationImportant in Cambodia, Laos, and Bangladesh

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Opportunities for connections- drought

• The rice-growing regions of Asia all grow rainfed rice.

• If this and the related projects find drought resistant germplasm and tools to create market-appropriate versions, the application could be huge.

RF one season =25000 ha

RF double season =25000 ha

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We must remember the consumers!

BangladeshParboiled rice

Firm-texture and very springy

CambodiaGlass-like rice

Aromatic and soft cooking

Lao PDRWaxy rice

Aromatic and soft and sticky

Boiled in excess water Cooked by absorbing particular amount of water

Steamed above boiling water

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Acknowledgements• Project partners: CARDI,

GDA, NSWDPI• ACIAR• CAVAC (Craig Meisner)• IRRI Grain Quality lab.• Supporters of spin-off

projects– Monsanto Beachell Borlaug– GRiSS– UQ– UWageningen

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Climate ready rice – water issues

• This new film describes with frightening clarity, the fragility of our future water supply.

• Our duty to our children’s children is to ensure that popular rice varieties use a lot less water than they do at the moment.

From the makers of An Inconvenient Truth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLE3i92LkQk