Hybrid rice could put the carbon in our carbs

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-11-08 03:00

Australia; International; QLD

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

A new breed of rice that is a hybrid of an annual Asian rice and a perennial African rice could be a more sustainable option, according to Australian and international research. The researchers say perennial rice, which can last multiple harvest seasons, is more cost effective and accumulates more organic carbon and nitrogen, improving soil quality compared to annual rice. The researchers say the hybrid rice was able to produce grain for eight consecutive harvests over four years at a yield comparable to the standard annual Asian rice, with much lower costs and labour.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Sustainability

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Queensland, Yunnan University, China

Funder: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1302264 and 31660387); provincial key R&D programme (202102AE090008), talent supporting project (YLXL20170010) and platform construction project (2016DH013, 2019HC028) from the Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department; long-term programmes for foreign talent (2010–2020) from the National and Yunnan Provincial Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs; the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M663589); and special funding (2010–2020) from the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, USA.

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