History of hybrid rice
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Hybrid rice is a type of rice that has been bred from two very different parents.It requires specialized seed production to keep the seed pure. To understand hybrid rice it first helps to understand what inbred rice is.
What is inbred rice?
flowers on a wild rice
Most varieties of rice grown by farmers around the world are "inbred" rice varieties. This means that the seed and subsequent crops from succeeding generations produced by the inbred variety will have the same genetic makeup as the parent crop.
Rice is a self-pollinating plant. Each rice flower contains both male and female parts, which allow each flower to pollinate itself without the need for other flowers, or other rice plants. Self-pollination is a natural and normal process. Farmers can save seed from their crop of inbred rice and replant it again knowing it will have the same properties as the parent crop it came from, provided cross-pollination with other varieties is avoided.
Cross pollination of rice in a farmer’s field can occur, but usually at relatively low rates depending on the layout of the field and the local environment. Rice pollen is short-lived (15 minutes) and there are no known insect pollinators – which reduces the means by which cross-pollination can naturally occur.
When breeding a new inbred rice variety scientists first cross two or more different varieties, then select the best offspring from subsequent generations of inbreeding until they get an inbred with all the characteristics they are breeding for. Most of the new rice varieties developed by IRRI are inbred rice varieties.