Biotech Updates

Indian and US Scientists Develop High Protein Rice

January 18, 2008

Indian and US scientists from the University of Missouri, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in India, and the Plant Genetics Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture have developed a high protein rice variety. Ahmed Mahmoud, S. Sukumar, and Hari Krishnan report that “Interspecific rice hybrid of Oryza sativa x Oryza nivara reveals a significant increase in seed protein content” in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The researchers created a hybrid by crossing a common rice species of the indica group cultivar IR 64 with a wild species, Oryza nivara. They concluded that the hybrid could serve as initial breeding material for new rice genotypes that could combine types with superior cooking quality with those of high protein content.

Co-author Hari Krishnan provides a PDF copy of the full article: http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jafcau/asap/html/jf071776n.html