Germplasm

Accession Information

Synopsis

To represent the range of genetic diversity found in cultivated Asian rice, we selected 400 Oryza sativa accessions from around the world. They cover the full geographic and ecological range of rice—from Indonesian paddy terraces, to the harsh upland soils of northern Thailand; from rapidly rising Chinese riverbeds to African mangrove environments. (GRAPHIC: map with locations)

Himalayan Red RiceThe 400 O. sativa accessions represent all five sub-populations of rice: indica, aus tropical japonica, temperate japonica and aromatic (basmati) varieties. The diverse set of rice accessions also includes a wide range of important economic phenotypes, including varieties known to be resistant to diseases and insects or tolerant to flooding, drought, high salt concentrations, low mineral nutrition. There are also varieties with varying cooking qualities, such as different grain colors, lengths, textures, and fragrance.

Brown Basmati RiceThe accessions were chosen to build upon several previous studies, including a subset of the varieties used by Garris et al. (2005) to evaluate sub-population structure in O. sativa. Approximately 300 of our accessions overlap with the 3,000 analyzed for diversity within the internationally-funded Generation Challenge Program (GCP) And 200 overlap with the the USDA-ARS rice core collection (REF).

All original accessions are available from the United States Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Philippines.  The purified stocks generated by this project and used for genotyping and phenotyping will be available in the near future.