Abstract
Rice is the most staple food consuming in China. During the past six decades, a large number of indica inbred rice cultivars have been developed. However, seldom studies have focused on evaluating the dynamic changes of grain quality improvement among the major cultivars. Our study evaluated the genetic improvement of 12 quality traits in indica inbred rice cultivars developed in rice breeding programs in South China during 1956–2020. The results indicated that significant improvement had been gained for the appearance quality, cooking and eating quality in the breeding program since the 1990s, while slight genetic improvement was attained before 1990. Among all the 12 traits, MGL (Milled Grain Length), LWR (Length Rate Ratio), GC (Gel Consistency), and ASV (Alkali Spreading Value) were significantly increased among these different cultivars; MGW (Milled Grain Width), CGR (Chalky Grain Rate), CA (Chalkiness Area), and AC (Amylase Content) showed a tremendously decreased trend from last thirty years. However, the other four traits, such as BRR (Brown Rice Rate), MRR (Milled Rice Rate), HMRR (Head Milled Rice Rate), and PC (Protein Content) showed little improvement during the breeding processes in these cultivars. The results also suggested that selecting a slender grain shape would be beneficial for breeding high quality indica rice. We also discussed that improving milling quality, especially HMRR of the high-quality cultivars and nutrition quality for special consumer groups as an meaningful direction for rice breeding.
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The data presented in this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Professor ZHANG Xu of Rice Research Institute, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences for critical reviews of this manuscript, Professor LI Hong and HE Xiu-Ying and Associate Professors CHEN Jian-You of Rice Research Institute, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences for providing the seeds of partial rice cultivars.
Funding
This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (2017A030313185, 2018A030313867), Guangdong Key Agricultural Program, China (2020B0202090003), Foundation of Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Breeding, Foundation of Guangdong Key laboratory of new technology in rice breeding (2020B1212060047).
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CL and ZZ conceived and designed the research; DC carried out the field experiments; XZ and JG carried out the rice quality analysis; KC, PC and YC analyzed the data; DC and XZ wrote the manuscript; CL and ZZ revised the manuscript. All the authors discussed the results and contributed to the manuscript.
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Zhou, XQ., Chen, DG., Guo, J. et al. Genetic improvement of grain quality traits in indica inbred rice cultivars developed in South China during 1956–2020. Euphytica 218, 8 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-021-02953-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-021-02953-2