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Rice Breeding Innovations

The Rice Breeding Innovations Platform will develop and deploy innovative breeding strategies, tools and technologies to sustainably enhance the genetic potential of rice for yield and its ability to tolerate biotic and abiotic stresses while improving the grain/nutritional quality; and help disseminate the new products faster to farmers by working closely with our  NARES partners.

Key Research Areas

Breeding for marginal environments

Developing rice varieties resilient and adaptive to biotic and abiotic stresses for non-ideal rice growing areas.

Breeding for favorable environments

Optimizing rice varieties and cropping systems for intensive rice-growing areas.

Breeding driven by emerging trends and market needs

Developing product profiles for prioritized pipelines based on maturity, farming practices, and consumer preferences—including grain quality, aroma & nutrition.

Breeding Innovations

Accelerating the rate of genetic gain through the adoption of innovative and modern breeding approaches and best practices—including precision phenotyping for key biotic, abiotic, grain and nutrition traits; breeding analytics; germplasm analyses; molecular breeding; pre-breeding; and genotyping support.

Germplasm evaluation, seed system and product management

Providing IRRI-bred germplasm and varieties to NARES partners for testing and release through the national varietal testing and release system to ensure faster delivery of better products to farmers.

Host plant resistance

Discovering and applying the resistance of rice plants to various environmental stresses.