It is known that rice is most sensitive to high temperatures during flowering, and that even one hour of exposure to temperatures above 35°C will cause sterility (empty grains) due to lack of fertilization. Based on the unique idea of making rice plants bloom in the cool morning hours to avoid high temperatures during flowering, JIRCAS is conducting research on early-morning flowering (EMF), which makes this possible.

A paper published in the journal Earth's Future reported that by 2050, more than 80% of the world's agricultural area is expected to suffer from agricultural water shortages. To mitigate the effects of water scarcity in future warming, it will be necessary to improve the use of green water, which is brought directly to agricultural lands by rainfall and stored in the soil, through the installation of small reservoirs.

June 29th is designated by the United Nations as the “International Day of the Tropics” to celebrate the extraordinary diversity and highlight the challenges of the tropics. The tropical regions account for 40% of the world's total surface area, approximately 80% of the world's biodiversity, and the majority of the world's diverse languages and cultures. The tropics have experienced significant economic development in recent years, but with the accompanying population growth and urbanization, coupled with climate change, the region faces challenges such as the degradation of the natural environment and ecosystems and a rapid decline in biodiversity. The rich natural environment and diverse biological resources of tropical regions need to be protected as common assets of the Earth.

The melting of sea ice in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean, along with the thawing of permafrost, the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, and the deforestation of the Amazon, is considered one of the tipping points in the climate change debate that will involve large-scale changes and will gradually become irreversible for our planet. Averting the threat of a global emergency will require urgent science-based action and social change to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), heatwaves have spread across the world, from North America to Europe, with some cases reported already reaching July or August temperatures before the Summer Solstice. Immediate mitigation and adaptation measures are needed.

Asian soybean rust (ASR) has a serious impact on soybean production in South America, which is a major soybean producing area, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. To combat the soybean rust disease, JIRCAS in collaboration with Nikkei-CETAPAR in Paraguay, has developed and released new ASR-resistant soybean cultivars JFNC 1 and JFNC 2. In this study, the extent to which these new cultivars have improved ASR resistance and yield compared to the original parental cultivars was investigated. The results showed that the yield potential of JFNC 1 and JFNC 2 was 1.7 and 1.4 times higher, respectively, than the parental cultivars when no fungicides were used in ARS occurring fields. Since production costs and environmental impact are increasing locally due to fungicide-resistant ASR pathogen, it is expected that the introduction of these new cultivars will be effective in combating soybean rust disease.

The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is held annually on June 17th to promote public awareness of international efforts to combat desertification. Desertification is the deterioration of land in arid areas, which occupy more than one-third of the world's land area and are home to nearly 40% of the world's population, primarily due to human activity and climate change. In fact, this desertification is not the expansion of existing deserts. Desertification is the decline in land productivity due to poverty and political instability, as well as excessive cultivation and grazing, improper irrigation and deforestation.

The FAO Food Outlook was published on June 9 and indicated that factors such as soaring input prices, climate, and market uncertainty stemming from the war in Ukraine could lead to tight food markets and historically high food import costs. The Food Outlook included special features on the impact of the war in Ukraine on global markets and the spillover effects on production and prices of fuels, fertilizers, and other inputs. In particular, the report warned that a sharp rise in input prices could prolong the already historically high food price levels and place a double burden on importing countries.

The approach of increasing zinc (Zn) concentrations in edible parts of food crops (Zn-biofortification) is a global breeding goal to alleviate Zn malnutrition, which particularly affects small children that need it for proper development. Because the Zn concentration in polished rice is usually too low to provide a sufficient proportion of the daily Zn intake, Zn deficiency is widespread in households where rice is the staple food and where people cannot afford to diversify their diet by adding mineral-rich fruits, vegetables, and meat. We used a genomic prediction model to predict Zn concentrations in 3000 genetic resources and selected potential high-Zn donors for experimental validation and subsequent biofortification breeding in Madagascar.