Grade：The first prize
Winners：Wan Jianming, Wang Cailin, Liu Chao, Li Aihong, Yao Lisheng, Yuan Caiyong, Xu Dayong, Sheng Shenglan, Niu Zhongyi, Jiang Ling, Zhou Chuhe,Deng Jianping, He Jinlong, Chen Liangming and Teng Youren.
Collaborators：Nanjing Agricultural University, Xuzhou Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Food Crops Research Institute of Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Crop Science Institute of China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Agricultural Research Institute of Lixia River Area, Yancheng Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Huaiyin Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Lianyungang Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Zhenjiang Institute of Agricultural Sciences
Rice is the first important food crop in China, producing about 42% of the total grain output in the country, and is therefore of great strategic significance for the national grain safety. Southern China is an important base of grain production in China with a japonica rice growing area of about 50 million mu. In 2000, rice stripe disease broke out and spread in the area, causing serious threat to the rice production. In 2004, the afflicted area of rice field in southern China reached over 23 million mu, causing 78 thousand mu rice died out, and resulting ina loss of 2.5 billion kg of rice grains. However, no systems had been established at that time for identification of stripe disease resistance in rice or molecular marker pyramid breeding, which caused lack of disease-resistant germplasms, genes and varieties of rice. Under that situation, Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Agriculture, as well as the departments of science and technology, agriculture and forestry, and finance of Jiangsu Provincial Government provided greatsupportfor scientific research on the above agricultural problems. The present research team grasped the opportunity, applying for and under taking a series research program such as National “863” program, National “948” Program, Technological Spanning Program, National Sci-tech Support Program, and several provincial research programs. In carrying out the above research programs, the scientists of the team managed to share resistance germplasm resources, genes, technologies and information, constructed platforms of southern rice variety breeding and application, jointly researched on the issue of stripe disease resistance, performed studies on high-yield and good-quality southern japonica rice varieties with stripe disease resistance, and made important progress in the studies of following aspects:
(1)The research team has established, for the first time, a large-scale system of identifying stripe disease resistance of rice; proposed methods for identifying the resistance of laodelphax striatellus, and identified stripe disease resistance of rice by combining inoculating seedlings with viruliferous small brown planthopper insects and mass inoculation, and has successfully developed technology and index systems of stripe disease identification by integrative laboratory and field performance; has established for the first time a large scale technological system of identifying stripe disease in rice with 99% identification accuracy. The researchers identified 10977 rice germplasms for stripe disease resistance and screened 212 germplasms with high disease resistance, laying a technological foundation for breeding new varieties of rice with stripe disease resistance.
(2)The research team has explored and mappedrice stripe disease resistance genes/QTLs and created a technological system of molecular marker pyramid breeding; has identified 24 stripe-disease-resistant genes/QTLs in high-disease-resistance rice germplasms, accounting for 71% of the genes reported in China and in the world; has precisely located the major disease-resistance gene Stv-bi; has developed 16 closely linked molecular markers of disease-resistance genes with the accuracy over 95%; and has made integrative use of conventional breeding and molecular marker assisted breeding in creating molecular-marker pyramid breeding system of stripe-disease-resistance rice varieties with high-yield and good-quality. They created 16 such germplasms.
(3)The research team has successfully bred 10 rice varieties adapted to different ecosystems and resistant to stripe disease which can quickly meet the demands of different rice growing areas in southern China; has led all the cooperative institutes or research stations in taking into consideration of breeding aims of different ecological areas, availability of disease-resistant new germplasms, large-scale disease-resistance identification technology and molecular marker pyramid-breeding technology, and has successfully bred 10 new rice varieties, such as Ningjing No.1 and Xudao No.3 that were early or mediumor late maturing with high yield and all resistance to stripe disease. The japonica variety Ningjing No.1 had a high yield of 786.1kg/mu in a one-hundred-mu experimental area under machine transplanting, and was recognized in 2006 by Ministry of Agriculture as super rice variety, in 2009 as the dominant super rice variety, during 2007 2009 Ningjing No.1 was awarded as one of the top three japonica rice varieties in the country. The researchers have developed quantitative and practical indexes for efficient and safe breeding of high-yield and quality new rice varieties and seven rice cultivation criterions. In 2007 to 2009, the extended areas for new rice varieties reached 83.1457 million mu in China with an economic benefit of 11.61 billion RMB. In 2009, the extended area accounted for 78% of all the areas for growing japonica rice in southern China. The accumulated extended area for growing new rice varieties was as much as 136.3417 million mu in China with corresponding economic benefit of 19.014 billion RMB for farmers.
Academically, the research program produced nine property rights for new rice varieties, four national patens for invention, 139 papers and articles, of which 46 have been published in SCI journals such as Plant J, Genetics, TAG and PMB.
To sum up, the research of this program effectively solved the difficult issue of damage to rice production in southern China by the prevalence of stripe disease, and made important contribution to insurance of food safety of the country, increase in income for farmers, and sustainable development of agricultural development in China.
