Rice roots with a larger diameter help the plant survive drought, and now researchers want to know if the same trait protects against heat stress. Dr Henry’s team has already shown that thicker nodal roots boost rice yields under drought. This grant extends that work by testing whether rice lines bred for drought resilience also tolerate high temperatures, using X-ray CT and laser ablation to examine root anatomy in detail. The problem is urgent: rice feeds roughly 3 billion people, and climate change threatens harvests with more frequent droughts and heatwaves. If the link holds, the team can identify the genes controlling root diameter and feed them into breeding programmes. The practical impact would be new rice varieties that yield reliably under multiple stresses, without requiring extra water or fertiliser. This is applied crop science with a clear path to field use—not fundamental research. Success would strengthen global food security by making a staple crop more resilient to the erratic weather that already disrupts farming across Asia and Africa.
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Rice- the primary food crop in Asia/Africa is produced across six continents and is the staple food for ~3 billion people. With increasing population, Global Food Security is one of the major challenges facing world agriculture(1). This is against the backdrop of global warming and climate unpredictability. Crop production is especially vulnerable to extremes of environmental stress (drought/heat) leading to significant losses in yield and quality. To meet the future food demand, there is an urgent need to develop diverse, climate-ready and resilient agricultural systems(1). Root traits determine the plant’s capacity to capture nutrients and water and therefore directly influence crop productivity. This grant builds on from the corresponding networking grant GCRFNGR5\1102. Dr Henry (lead applicant) recently showed that nodal root diameter correlated positively with improved yield under drought stress(2,3). Interestingly, changes in root diameter have also been correlated with salt(4) and compaction(5) stresses. Plus, CoI team has observed that primary root diameter is affected under high temperature stress. This grant proposal will test the heat tolerance/resilience of lines already selected for drought resilience by the lead applicant. They will also be subject to detailed root architectural and anatomical studies using X-Ray CT and Laser Ablation tomography. This programme combines innovative multi-disciplinary approaches to investigate heat/drought tolerance in rice and is likely to provide novel genes for translation into a crop breeding programme. 1. Bailey-Serres et al2019, Nature 575,109-118. 2. Liao et al,2022,Plant Cell Environ,45:854-870. 3. Siangliw et al,2022,Front Plant Sci13:1008954. 4.Huang et al 2022,PNAS(USA),119,e2201072119. 5.Huang et al,2021,Int Mol Sci22,10892.
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