Project description:One of the serious constraints to realize high level of rice crop productivity in agriculture has been due to Soil Water Stress (SWS) situation that growing plants often face. In order to increase or maintain the crop productivity in SWS situation, our initial aim is to understand the drought response mechanism in different genotypes of rice. For thorough analysis of SWS situation in rice we have taken here two wild genotypes of rice namely Oryza nivara, Oryza rufipogon and three Oryza sativa indica cultivars namely Nagina-22, IR20 and Vandana, where IR20 is known to be susceptible and Vandana is known to be tolerant under SWS condition [GSE49364 and the current study]. Global analysis of transcript profiling under SWS condition reveal the actual picture of genes responsive to stress situation in different genetic background of rice. Furthermore it would help us in the selection of most desirable resource for crop breeding without compromising the yield of crop. We used the 44k rice Oligoarray from Agilent technologies to study the expression profiles from five rice genotypes during vegetative (Veg) and grain-filling (GF) stages under varying water conditions, viz. Before Stress (BS), After Stress (AS) and After Recovery (AR).
Project description:Intensive application of inorganic nitrogen underlies marked increase in crop production yet imposes detrimental impact on ecosystems, hence it is crucial for future sustainable agriculture to improve nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE). Here we report the genetic basis of NUE associated with the local soil adaptation in rice. With a diverse rice germplasm panel collected from different ecogeographic regions, we performed genome-wide association study on tillering response to nitrogen (TRN), the most correlated trait with NUE of rice, and identified OsTCP19 as a modulator of TRN via transcriptionally responding to nitrogen and targeting to Dwarf and Low-Tillering (DLT), a tiller-promoting gene. A 29-bp InDel in OsTCP19 promoter confers differential transcription response to nitrogen and TRN variation among rice varieties. The high-TRN allele of OsTCP19 (OsTCP19-H) is prevalent in wild rice population, but largely lost in modern cultivars correlating with increased local soil nitrogen content, suggesting that it might have contributed to geographic adaptation in rice. Introgression of OsTCP19-H into modern rice cultivars boosts grain yield and NUE under low or moderate nitrogen levels, demonstrating its enormous potential for rice breeding and environment amelioration through reducing nitrogen application.