Vietnamese professors enrich the bank of precious rice genes

Insect-resistant, flood-resistant and drought-resistant genes have been added to Vietnam's gene bank in the context of serious genetic erosion.

Prof. Nguyen Thi Lang (61 years old) , senior researcher of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute was named by many people in the industry because she was the author of more than 73 rice varieties, of which 31 varieties were Ministry of Agriculture Industry and Rural Development recognized and put into production.

A special feature in Professor Lang's studies has exploited the starting material for breeding and identification of some rice varieties that carry good quality genes with low amylose content (rice is unstable and not hard to leave cool) through evaluation of phenotype and genotype.

As with the OM rice varieties, she found a way to stabilize the aromatic gene and amylose content into the main rice variety in production, yield over 9 tons / ha, good quality rice.

Prof. Nguyen Thi Lang in tissue culture room.

In the role of chairman of the research "Research on the application of advanced technology to create pure rice varieties resistant to salinity, drought adaptation to the conditions of rice cultivation in saline areas in the Mekong Delta" , implemented from 2013 By 2017, GS Lang and his colleagues will contribute to the national gene bank of rice genes resistant to drought, salinity and pest resistance.

Listening to GS Lang on how to create new genes found the process extremely complicated. With blast, she and scientists studied sixty Pyricularia oryzae strains from wild rice collected from 103 isolates in Vietnam to represent pathogens. The team used 33 lines of single genes to select 23 resistance genes, easily controlling the blast gene. Then perform multiple screening and isolation.

To assess bacterial toxicity on rice varieties, many experiments were also conducted to select the rice blast resistance gene. The selection and breeding process is similar to the anti-drought and salinity genes.

Professor Lang said that current lines are coordinated to gather genes on a rice variety. In the immediate future, three genes were gathered in the same tree: salinity, drought and low amylose content. Currently studies continue to bring these genes into aroma, resistant to major brown plant hopper and disease.

Prof. Nguyen Thi Lang and colleagues tested the breeding of rice genes.(Photo: NVCC).

Erosion control of gene sources

According to experts, the phenomenon of genetic erosion will happen quickly and widely within 50 years. Then the remaining organisms in nature can give breeders very little material in finding genetic variations. As of now, Vietnam's rice season is not much.

In that context, GS Lang's topic has created 250 hybrid combinations with 12,600 lines from different generations, many varieties of rice added to starting materials and improved to produce 75 lines / varieties of prospects. .

The results of the project are exploitation materials for other topics and enrich genetic resources for rice in the future.

To achieve this success, Prof. Lang said the research team has been supported by the National Technology Innovation Program (Ministry of Science and Technology) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. discuss data.

Due to the erratic changes of weather, due to the influence of crop, GS Lang proposed that the Government should continue to invest in researching and creating mangrove varieties for coastal protection areas of the Mekong Delta provinces. Studies of heat-resistant genes under the conditions of warming up rice to irresistible rice should also be studied.

Prof. Nguyen Thi Lang was born in 1957 in Ben Tre province. She successfully bred 73 rice varieties, of which 31 were recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as the national standard. In addition, 106 other rice varieties bred by her are also in the process of national testing.

She has over 110 national and international scientific papers, published 21 specialized scientific books, chaired 93 topics including 29 international topics and 6 state-level projects. More than 43 research works of the professor have brought practical solutions and applications for production and commercialization of research results.

In 2011, she was awarded the Vietnam Women's Award for choosing to successfully create dozens of hybrid rice varieties with salinity, yield and high quality.

In 2016 she was awarded the L'Oréal - UNESCO Science Award for Women Development.