(ECNS) -- China has made a significant advance in hybrid rice breeding, with a research team developing a one-line hybrid rice that achieves a cloning efficiency stably above 99% while setting seed normally, according to Xinhua News Agency.
The work was led by Wang Kejian, a researcher at the China National Rice Research Institute. The team has named the new rice "Yixi No. 1," and its findings were published on July 21 in the international academic journal Vita.
In 2013, Wang's team launched a program to explore one-line hybrid rice. The aim was to use apomixis to make hybrid crops produce clonal seed carrying unchanged genetics, locking in hybrid vigor so that a single cross could be used generation after generation.
The team built the first apomixis system in hybrid rice in 2017 and obtained the first clonal hybrid rice seed, but cloning efficiency was only about 5% at that stage, and the seed-setting rate dropped sharply.
After several more years of work, the team identified an endogenous rice gene it named HUAXU. Ectopic expression of HUAXU in hybrid rice egg cells efficiently induced parthenogenesis and produced haploid offspring.
Combined with a clonal gamete strategy, the resulting apomictic lines reached close to 100% cloning efficiency, holding stably above 99% across multiple hybrid rice varieties, generations, planting populations, and large field populations, with yields at normal levels.
Wang said the achievement could fundamentally change the traditional model in which hybrid rice depends on seed being produced afresh every year, and provide new technological support for global food security.
He added that many challenges remain in moving from the experimental field to widespread application. The team's next steps are safety testing and stability evaluation, along with further work to refine the technology.
(By Helen Mo, intern Liu Shuangjing)
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