Rice

Abstract

Rice is a staple crop for more than half of the world's population. Rice improvement has achieved remarkable success in the past half-century, with the yield doubled in most parts of the world and even tripled in certain regions, which has contributed greatly to food security globally. However, rice yield recently reached a ceiling due to increasingly severe occurrences of insects, diseases, and water shortage. Rapid population growth and economic development pose a constant pressure for yield increase in rice production. Recently, a novel rice-breeding goal was proposed: the development of Green Super Rice to address these challenges. On the premise of continued yield increase and quality improvement, Green Super Rice would possess multiple resistance to insects and diseases, high nutrient-use efficiency, and drought resistance. The application of transgenic approach is essential to realize this goal. Rice is also one of the most amenable crop plants for transformation with highly efficient transformation technology. Many transgenic studies of rice have been conducted, and most of the target traits are consistent with the goal of Green Super Rice. In this chapter, we review the main progress of transgenic rice on a number of fronts. Although no transgenic rice has currently been commercialized in rice production, we believe that transgenic rice will play a crucial role in realizing the breeding goal of Green Super Rice to ensure sustainable rice production in the future.