By Gabe Saldana
Two new Texas A&M AgriLife Research projects are advancing rice breeding strategies to improve productivity for growers while creating new opportunities in health-focused markets.
Led by Shyamal Talukder, Ph.D., AgriLife Research rice breeder, geneticist and assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, the combined efforts bring more than $1.1 million in research funding to support Texas rice innovation. One project aims to improve yield and quality in main and ratoon rice crops, while the second seeks to enhance the health benefits and commercial viability of purple rice.
Together, the projects will employ traditional breeding techniques as well as advanced technologies like unmanned aerial systems, or UAS-based high-throughput phenotyping, genomic selection and artificial intelligence, AI.
Testing new technologies for rice yield and quality
The first project, Breeding Rice to Enhance Main and Ratoon Crop Yield and Quality Using UAS-based Imaging, Phenotypic and Genomic Selection, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture, aims to modernize the rice breeding pipeline.
The team’s work to improve rice yield and quality in main and ratoon crops will be driven by a multipronged approach. They will establish a UAS-based precision phenotyping system for rice breeding, develop molecular markers for desirable rice crop traits, and develop a cost-effective marker panel for genomic selections and machine learning.
Source : tamu.edu