Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Japanese cultivar
'
Sasanishiki
'
was identi
ed as promising for local
cultivation. The
first crosses were made in 1994, and C-289, a short-
grain premium-quality and high-yielding cultivar, was selected from a
local population (Koshihikari/INIA Tacuarí). Currently, it is in the
validation phase in a company specialized in this market niche. More
recently, breeding objectives have been reoriented, according to mill-
ing industry demands, to the developmentofmediumgrains,amarket
segment with more consistent prices. To achieve this objective,
crosses, selection, and anther culture have been used in recent seasons.
In general,
temperate japonica
germplasm shows good adaptation to
the eastern region of Uruguay, offering the opportunity to develop
high-yielding cultivars.
Hybrid Rice.
Through a cooperation agreement between RiceTec and
INIA, this company has been testing INIA cultivars in hybrid combina-
tions. The RiceTec hybrid Inov CL, the most widely grown in the
MERCOSUR region, was developed through this agreement. As a mem-
ber of the Hybrid Rice for Latin America (HIAAL) consortium, created in
2012 and coordinated by CIAT and FLAR, INIA
'
s rice breeding program
has been increasingly involved in hybrid development and testing. In
regional experiments conducted in 2012
-
2013, the elite hybrid CT
23034H showed similar and up to 6% higher yields than the leading
hybrid Inov CL.
6. Future Challenges.
The adoption of improved cultural practices is
narrowing the gap between farmers
yield and achievable yield potential
in the country. The percentage of farmers with yields
'
9tha
1
increased
from 4% in the 1990s to 18% in the 2000s (Blanco et al. 2010). The
technological gap between farmers
>
fields and research plots dropped
from 29% in 1996 to 14% in 2010, thus drastically reducing the techno-
logical reserve (F. Pérez de Vida, unpubl.). This scenario imposes a
major challenge to breeders to accelerate cultivar development and
improve yield potential. In the next few years, INIA
'
s Rice Breeding
Programwill increase cooperation with other institutions to achieve these
goals. New projects will be launched to study radiation use ef
'
ciency as
well as the crop
s general adaptability to environmental conditions, to
incorporate new blast resistance genes and to move forward in molecular
breeding with a greater number of DNA markers to assist selection, and
develop new hybrids with improved adaptation to local conditions.
Additionally, partnership with FLAR and CIAT will continue to support
incorporating useful genetic diversity into the new pool of improved
Uruguayan rice germplasm.
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