Climate-Proof-Rice

Enlarging the existing regional partnership to one of the major european rice research teams, and buildingon improved germplasm developed in the framwork of previous regional projects, the present proposal aimsat developping new “climate-proof rice vaieties” for the irrigated and rainfed lowland ecosystems of Laosand Thailand. The expected outcome is an enhanced adaptive capacity of rice farmers of the target regionsto climate risks.The varietal improvement process will call on the most advanced knowledge on the genetic bases of climate-change related traits such as high temperatures (that cause yield losses due to rice flowers’ sterility), onproven methods of marker-assisted selection and on a state of the art breeding data-management system. Italso relies on complementary experimental facilities (for instance field and greenhouse phenotyping facilitiesin NAFRI/BIOTEC, respectively, growth chamber facility mimicking high temperature at CIRAD, molecularmarker lab at BIOTEC) and skills of the three research team.Including several training workshops and training by research component, the project will strongly contributeto the empowerment of the less advanced partner and to the achievement of the networking objectives of thethree partners