UCD researchers strike again; UCD is becoming (or probably already is) a pretty special university!
An excerpt.
This rice refuses to panic in floods
UCD researchers help develop a variety that can survive in conditions that take a huge toll on a basic crop vital to millions
By Jim Downing -- Bee Staff Writer Published 12:01 am PDT Thursday, August 17, 2006
As lifeguards say: If you're in trouble in the water, don't panic -- you'll tire yourself out.
Turns out, the same advice works for rice.
If submerged, the staple crop for half the world's population will use up energy reserves trying to grow above the water and die in a matter of days.
That's a big problem in many parts of Asia, where deep flooding damages an estimated 25 million acres of rice each year.
Now, a team of scientists, including several researchers at the University of California, Davis, has bred a rice that "knows" to save its energy when underwater. It can wait out floods of two weeks or longer.
The new breed's special ability also could prove useful in California by giving rice farmers another tool for killing weeds without using herbicide. Most weeds, like most standard varieties of rice, can't survive for long underwater. With the new flood-tolerant rice variety, farmers could drown their weeds without killing their crop.
The submersible rice marks one of the first successful uses of a new plant-breeding method that may someday allow researchers to develop food crops able to withstand not only flooding, but also cold weather, drought, disease and salty soil -- without the use of controversial genetic engineering techniques.
