Experts Find Rice's Secret Weapon for Drought

Drought is one of the major concerns for rice farmers because it can cause plants to senesce prematurely and reduce crop yields. A new study published in Plants has found that a protein called OsEF1A plays a role in drought tolerance and yield in rice.

OsEF1A is a multifunctional protein that is vital for the translation of eukaryotic proteins. In the study, the researchers localized and cloned the OsEF1A gene in rice. Then they developed transgenic plants that overexpressed OsEF1A. This technique generated plants with significantly more tillers and grains. The transgenic seedlings also showed increased relative water content and proline content, and decreased malondialdehyde content, all of which are indicators of drought tolerance.

These findings suggest that OsEF1A plays a positive role in regulating rice nutritional development under drought stress. The researchers believe that these findings could help to improve yield and stress tolerance in rice at the molecular level.

Read more findings in Plants.