A Japanese research team has developed a new type of rice plant that is resistant to drought. The team includes researchers from laboratories including the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences and the RIKEN institute.
They removed genes that enhance tolerance of dry conditions from a plant called arabidopsis, and injected them into a popular rice plant in South America. The researchers observed the growth of the rice plants at a farm in Colombia for 3 years.
The treated plants yielded as much as 2.5 times more compared to before the treatment during the dry season from 2013 to 2014 when no rain fell for more than 1 month.
