Rice feeds the world. But a look-alike weed has many ways of getting ahead.
Rice feeds the world. But a look-alike weed has many ways of getting ahead.
Weedy rice is an agricultural pest with a global economic impact. It is an aggressive weed that outcompetes cultivated rice and causes billions of dollars in yield losses worldwide. In the U.S. alone, crop losses attributed to weedy rice could feed an additional 12 million people annually.
A study from Washington University in St. Louis offers new insights into genetic changes that give weedy rice its edge over cultivated rice in tropical regions of the world. Writing in Nature Communications, researchers report that one of weedy rice’s secret weapons is its promiscuity: Weedy rice readily crossbreeds with naturally occurring wild rice that grows nearby.
Biologist Kenneth Olsen, a George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, worked with partners in China, Malaysia and Thailand to conduct this research. The scientists analyzed whole-genome sequences from 217 wild, weedy and cultivated rice samples and found that wild rice hybridization with weeds has contributed substantially to the evolution of Southeast Asian weedy rice.
Read more at Washington University in St. Louis
Photo Credit: loilamtan via Pixabay
