Chinese scientists have successfully cloned hybrid rice seeds

Wang Kejian team of the National Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China Rice Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, used gene editing technology to establish a rice non-fusion reproductive system, successfully cloning hybrid rice seeds, so that hybrid rice characteristics can be steadily inherited to the next generation. The results were published online Thursday evening in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
hybrid rice is superior to both parents in terms of life force, resistance, adaptability and yield, and has made an important contribution to promoting agricultural production. Data show that hybrid rice currently has an annual planting area of more than 240 million mu in China, accounting for 57% of the total rice planting area, and the yield accounts for about 65% of the total rice production. Hybrid rice yields about 2.5 million tons per year, which can feed an estimated 70 million people per year.
Because hybrid seed offspring are separated in nature and cannot maintain their hybrid advantage, breeders must spend a great deal of human, material and financial resources on seeding each year, and farmers must buy new seeds each year.
" scientists have long believed that non-converged reproduction can solve this problem. Non-converged reproduction is a form of reproduction through seed asexual reproduction, which can be changed with generations without changing the hybrid genotype, thus achieving the fixed advantage of hybrids, which is expected to bring about a new revolution in agricultural production. Wang Kejian said.In the
experiment, the researchers selected the hybrid rice variety Chunyou 84 as the model variety of rice non-fusion reproductive research, and used CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology to knock out four rice reproductive-related genes in Chunyu 84, so that hybrid rice produced non-fusion reproductive forms, and produced cloned seeds like hybrid rice. Through further testing, the researchers determined that the subgeneration plants grown from cloned seeds were highly similar to a generation of hybrid rice.
" proves the feasibility of hybrid rice for non-fusion reproduction, is a major breakthrough in the field of non-fusion reproduction research, has great theoretical significance. Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice" and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said he hoped the researchers would make further efforts to apply the results to production as soon as possible. (Source: Xinhua News Agency, Zhu Han)