Genetic diversity reveals synergistic interaction between yield components could improve the sink size and yield in rice

Khalid Anwar, Rohit Joshi, Alejandro Morales, Gourab Das, Xinyou Yin, Niels P.R. Anten, Saurabh Raghuvanshi, Rajeev N. Bahuguna, Madan Pal Singh, Rakesh K. Singh, Martijn van Zanten, Rashmi Sasidharan, Sneh L. Singla-Pareek, Ashwani Pareek*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Intensive breeding programs have increased rice yields, strongly contributing to increasing global food security during the post-green revolution period. However, rice productivity has reached a yield barrier where further yield improvement is restricted by inadequate information on the association of yield components, and morphological and physiological traits with yield. We conducted a field experiment to evaluate (i) the contribution of morphological and physiological traits to yield and (ii) quantify the trade-off effect between the yield components in rice, using a mini-core collection of 362 rice genotypes comprising geographically distinct landraces and breeding lines. Our data point towards multiscale coordination of physiological and morphological traits associated with yield and biomass. Considerable trait variations across the genotypes in yield ranging from 0.5 to 78.5 g hill−1 and harvest index ranging from 0.7% to 60.7% highlight enormous diversity in rice across the globe. The natural elimination of trade-off between yield components revealed the possibility to enhance rice yield in modern cultivars. Furthermore, our study demonstrated that genotypes with larger sink sizes could fix more carbon to achieve a higher yield. We propose that the knowledge thus generated in this study can be helpful for (a) trait-based modeling and pyramiding alleles in rice-breeding programs and (b) assisting breeders and physiologists in their efforts to improve crop productivity under a changing climate, thus harnessing the potential for sustainable productivity gains.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere334
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalFood and Energy Security
Volume11
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
AP and SLS‐P would like to thank the support received from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, for the Indo‐NWO Project (BT/IN/NOW/15/AP/2015‐16). This research was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), project numbers 867.15.030 (AM, NA, and XY) and 867.15.031 (AM, RS and MvZ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Food and Energy Security published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Funding

AP and SLS‐P would like to thank the support received from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, for the Indo‐NWO Project (BT/IN/NOW/15/AP/2015‐16). This research was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), project numbers 867.15.030 (AM, NA, and XY) and 867.15.031 (AM, RS and MvZ).

Keywords

  • biomass
  • genetic diversity
  • grain yield
  • phenotyping
  • rice
  • sink size
  • traits
  • yield barrier

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