Summary

A second student was recruited for the project “Screening Water-Efficient and Climate-Resilient Rice Parental Lines for the Australian Rice Industry”. Her role is to focus on vegetative-stage screening for water-use efficiency in the glasshouse. The 20 commercial Australian rice cultivars and the 300 rice belonging to the Yanco Rice Diversity Panel will be grown in the glasshouse under optimal water and compared with those that were grown under minimal water. Photosynthetic efficiency, agronomic properties, root and leaf biomass and yield will be analysed. At the end of the experiment, the leaf and root biomass will be compared. A spectroscopic method for the characterisation starch, proteins and lipids will be developed to rapidly characterise the grain quality of rice. The milling quality of rice under optimal and minimal water will also be compared. Genome-wide association, allele mining,  candidate gene analyses, and markers will be developed for water-use and photosynthetic efficiency, and agronomic properties of the 300 Australian rice diversity panel. Lastly, we will also explore the possibility of enhancing water-use efficiency, abiotic stress tolerance and root biomass traits using a proprietary blend of silicon. This proposal is to support the second student’s living allowance cost while conducting her research for three years through the AgriFutures Top-Up Scholarship because only her tuition fees has been covered by Swinburne so far. 

Program

Rice

Research Organisation

Swinburne University of Technology