With traditional crossing, researchers have created a new variety of rice that reduces up to 70% methane emissions and produces more than 8 tons per hectare – more than double the global average.
A new variety of rice can dramatically reduce methane emissions, powerful gas with greenhouse effect, up to 70%according to a study this Monday at Molecular Plant.
The new variety of rice was developed by a team led by Anna Schnurer from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, which studied two varieties of rice: Nipponbarea Japanese culture known for the average methane emissions, and Susiba2a genetically modified variety with significantly lower methane production.
The team found that Susiba2 produced less fumarate (a key compound linked to methane emissions) than nipponbare. However, even when treated with a chemical that prevents fumarate decomposition, Susiba2 continued to emit less methane, which suggested that there are other factors at stake.
Further investigation revealed that Susiba2 also segregated higher levels of ethanolsomething that seemed to suppress methane production. With traditional improvement techniques, researchers crossed a variety of high performance elite rice with the Heijingknown for producing little fumarate and too much ethanol.
It was two years of field rehearsals in China, according to investigators, but those who always reach. The results were impressive: the new variety of rice produced more than 8 tons per hectare – more than twice the global average – In addition to emitting, as already reinforced, less 70% methane compared to the variety of elite from which it derived.
“The focus point of the study is the fact that they do not use genetic engineering or editing technologies or transgenic approaches,” he says to Johannes Le Coure, a researcher at the University of Nova Gales do Sul: “They use the traditional intersection to create new rice lines that reduce methane synthesis ”.
A rice culture is responsible for about 12% of global methane emissions. The emissions originate from the soil microbes of the flooded rice areas, which decompose the exuded root released by plants. Although this process benefits the plant when providing nutrients, it also generates methane, a gas that has a 25 -fold heating potential than carbon dioxide.
