Moreover, rice is also an ideal model plant for the
study of grass genetics and genome organization due to
its diploid genetics, relatively small genome size 430 Mb,
significant level of genetic polymorphism (McCouch et al.,
1998; Wang et al., 1992), large amount of well conserved
genetically diverse material (approximately 100,000
accessions of rice germplasm worldwide) and the availability
of widely collected, compatible wild species.