Study reveals factors linked to hybrid rice

According to a research team led by Professor WU Yuejin from the Institute of Intelligence of the Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a new technology for analyzing the composition of a single grain has was recently developed to help assess the taste quality of hybrid rice.

They also found that the taste quality of hybrid rice is not only related to the chemical composition of the rice, but also influenced by the variation in the chemical composition of a single grain.

The results were published in Agriculture.

Rice is one of the major food crops in the world. Amylose, protein and fat are important quality characteristics of rice and have important effects on eating quality, storage quality and processing quality. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has the advantages of being non-destructive, fast and non-polluting in crop quality detection, but it is difficult to achieve high-throughput accurate detection of quality traits from a single grain in isolated populations for genetic selection.

In previous research, the team designed and built an intelligent instrument for detecting and sorting the quality of single-grain crops.

Based on this high-throughput (2-3 grains/second) single-grain-grade NIR detection platform, the team developed models to explore the best detection and sorting conditions. With these models, the researchers were able to determine the amylose and fat content of individual rice grains.

They compared the data under two different conditions. Under static measurement conditions. The coefficient of determination (R²) values ​​were 0.886 and 0.743 for modeling amylose and fat content. And under dynamic measurement conditions, R² the values ​​were 0.666 and 0.765.

“The process was quick and non-destructive,” said CHENG Weimin, first author of the paper, “and when evaluating the taste quality of hybrid rice, we found the reasons for the variable taste quality of rice hybrid using single-grain quality trait analysis techniques.”

According to the research, the high-quality hybrid rice had the following characteristics: first, the physico-chemical indicators for a large sample size meeting national standards were the determining requirement, and second, the low variation in the composition of the single grain was the important requirement.

R² of the taste quality model increased from 0.657 to 0.850 when variations in single-grain composition were added to the independent variables (amylose content, protein content, alkaline spreading value, and gel consistency).

In addition, the effect of sterile lines on the taste quality of hybrid rice was greater than that of restorer lines, so the selection of high-quality sterile lines was particularly important for the selection of good-tasting combinations.

It was a new method to assess the taste quality of hybrid rice and laid the foundation for high-yield and quality breeding of hybrid rice.

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