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Rice Breeding Australia Ltd (RBA) has continued to rapidly evolve the previous rice breeding program, and July 2024 marks the end of a very successful second season.

RBA commenced the CY 2024 season with the opportunity to implement significant changes identified in the previous year. The organisation set itself an ambitious target of a five-fold increase in the number of lines evaluated in the field across 14 trials, and a three-fold increase in glasshouse evaluation. Both were achieved through RBA staff members’ great planning, teamwork and vision.

The field program was most successful, with all trials harvested. Although the Northern Rivers trials were affected by disease, this provided an opportunity to identify key lines with Blast resistance ahead of schedule. Glasshouse screening for cold tolerance and yield evaluation demonstrated the importance of cold tolerance for high-yielding varieties in all growing environments, not just where a major cold event occurred.

The collaborations RBA has established continue to allow the organisation to undertake best-practice breeding and deliver results for the Australian rice industry. Of particular note is the success of the cold-tolerant quantitative trait loci (QTL) developed by The University of Queensland (UQ) and deployed by RBA.