Dr. SASAKI Kazuhiro (Senior Researcher, Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division) and his co-authors received the 21th Crop Science Society of Japan (CSSJ) Best Paper Award for their research article, titled "Effect of drought stress on flowering characteristics in rice (Oryza sativa L.): a study using genotypes contrasting in drought tolerance and flower opening time" (ISHIMARU Tsutomu, SASAKI Kazuhiro, Patrick D. Lumanglas, Carlo Leo U. Cabral, Changrong Ye, YOSHIMOTO Mayumi, and Amelia Henry), at the 257th Meeting of the CSSJ held at Mie University on March 28-29, 2024.

Climate change is predicted to alter precipitation patterns, making it crucial to ensure crop production under conditions of water scarcity and drought stress. In fields experiencing drought stress, plant transpiration is limited, leading to increased temperatures in the panicles. This paper reveals that IR64 +qEMF3 can flower in the early morning hours even under drought stress conditions, maintaining lower panicle temperatures compared to IR64. Among the rice lines developed by the International Rice Research Institute for drought stress tolerance, some are susceptible to high temperatures, indicating that early morning flowering trait may complement breeding efforts for drought stress tolerance.

Award Information (in Japanese)

CSSJ Best Paper Award

Awarded Paper

ISHIMARU Tsutomu, SASAKI Kazuhiro, Patrick D. Lumanglas, Carlo Leo U. Cabral, Changrong Ye, YOSHIMOTO Mayumi, Arvind Kumar & Amelia Henry (2022) Effect of drought stress on flowering characteristics in rice (Oryza sativa L.): a study using genotypes contrasting in drought tolerance and flower opening time, Plant Production Science, 25:3, 359-370, DOI: 10.1080/1343943X.2022.2085589

Pick Up Article

572. Using Rice Early-Morning Flowering Trait to Reduce Sterility Due to High Temperature