Biotechnology of Rice: Present Limitations and Future Prospects

Rice is the major food crop of more than half of the world population, and with the growing population, the demand on the improvement of this cereal crop has also been increase. The conventional breeding techniques which have been used have the limitations of being time consuming and also only closely related species can be crossed, rather limiting the gene pool available for improvement. Hence, the crop improvement by genetic engineering has an edge over the other methods as not only does it allow for the introduction of new characters from unrelated species, the procedures are not that time consuming. Rice suffers from major yield losses every year due to its susceptibility to various pathogens and abiotic stresses. The tissue culture of rice is fairly well standardized and has now become a routine technique. Besides, a number of gene transfer methods notably particle gun and Agrobacterium mediated methods have been used to transform various rice genotypes. There are now several reports of rice transgenics with various useful genes, which confer resistance to insect, pests, diseases, and tolerance to abiotic stresses, as well as the improvement of the nutritional value of the plant. In spite of, such efforts in the direction of improvement of rice crop, several draw backs need to be over come as well as the present technology be harnessed to the fullest to improve the quality of rice and to minimize the losses due to pathogens and unfavourable environmental conditions.