Developing climate smart aerobic rice varieties for addressing the problems of water scarcity and global warming

Abstract

Growing population, rising demand for food, looming water crisis, climate change and global warming, reduced nutrient availability, higher cost of irrigation, and poor availability of labor have threatened the puddled transplanted system of rice (PTR). Rice needs two to three times more water than other cereals. Due to water scarcity, farmers may not be in a state to use the same amount of water for cultivation of rice and there is an urgent need to find out long-term effective and reliable methods to grow rice more efficiently. Use of machines, new technologies, coping strategies, genes for a range of agro-ecologies varying in edaphic and water regimes, and novel genomic techniques will allow us to move toward resource (labor, water, and energy) efficient and climate smart agriculture, especially in the case of rice. The identification of suitable traits and use of correlated genetic regions for seedling establishment and root traits that can potentially improve the nutrient uptake and grain yield under water-deficient conditions and pyramiding of these regions in a breeding program may lead to higher yield and adaptability of rainfed rice under aerobic conditions. Understanding of molecular mechanisms and successful exploitation of major effect genetic regions in various genetic backgrounds under variable environment and subsequent selection of lines with desired traits may result in development of novel water-efficient aerobic rice varieties. This chapter reviews the research including the development and use of innovative technologies and identification of useful traits and genetic regions associated with aerobic adaptation to achieve resource efficient cultivation of rice and to combat the effects of climate shift, water scarcity, and global warming.