The Status and Strategy on Drought Resistance of Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

The shortage of water resources has become the crisis faced by the world. Water is becoming a restricted factor of agricultural development. Developing drought resistance rice varieties and cultivating rice in limited water condition not only saving water in a large degree but also increasing and stabilizing yield, economizing energy and minimizing environment pollution. Drought resistance includes drought escape, dehydration avoidance, drought tolerance and drought recovery. The morphological and physiological studies have opened out a lot of rice traits related with drought resistance. The root and leaf characters, growth duration, osmotic adjustment and ABA content were relative closely with drought resistance of rice. Recently, mapping drought resistance gene (QTLs) using molecular markers was conducted. The great progress has been achieved in variety improvement. The strategy of drought resistance studies is developing drought resistance variety and introducing appropriate cultivation technology to increase rice yield as well as save water resources. Focusing on breeding drought resistance rice varieties in rainfed lowland and high yield upland rice, the major objectives are: 1) establishing representative base for drought resistance research; 2) screening and improving drought resistance germplasm; 3) conducting drought physiology and genetics studies; 4) transforming drought resistance gene to rice; 5) setting up water limited cultivation technology.