Unlocking the properties of pre-Green Revolution rice with focus on nitrogen economy

释放绿色革命前水稻的特性，重点关注氮经济

• 批准号: EP/X022404/1
• 负责人: Rafal Gutaker
• 金额: $ 153.85万
• 依托单位: Royal Botanic Gardens
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX022404%2F1
• 关键词: Unlocking; properties; pre; Green; Revolution

Crop plants evolve under the pressure of human needs and agricultural practices, hence contemporary varieties can be very different from those cultivated a century ago. In 1967, the Green Revolution invoked one of the most radical changes to crops and their cultivation environment. It encompassed mechanisation, the introduction of agro-chemicals, irrigation, and the replacement of traditional landraces with high-yielding hybrid monoculture. While it is credited with saving around one billion lives from starvation in developing countries, it implemented high chemical-input unsustainable agriculture, which affected crops, their environment, their associated microbiomes, and our dietary habits. Due to the high pace of rice agriculture transformation in Asia, we have very limited knowledge about the past genetic diversity, symbiotic relationships, and nutritional qualities of rice. In particular, we know very little about rice interactions with microbes, which are frequently suggested as sustainable alternatives to chemical inputs. To better understand the chemical-independent agriculture of the past, and to unlock rice properties that could improve sustainable nitrogen uptake, I propose to characterize the genomic, metagenomic and chemical diversity of historical populations of rice in Southeast Asia that predate the Green Revolution. Tailoring multi-omic approaches to degraded historical plants is not trivial. This project will utilize state-of-art methodology for archaeogenomics, pioneer analyses of nutrients in historical samples, and employ new methods for accurate microbiome characterization. I will conduct field experiments to test the effects of pre-Green Revolution microbial mixtures on rice nitrogen economy. In sum, this project will spearhead the mining of historical crop collections to unlock lost properties of crops through multi-omics. It will inspire the search for lost biotic and abiotic resistance traits with promise to increase our future food security.

作物植物在人类需求和农业实践的压力下进化，因此，当代品种可能与一个世纪前的种植植物大不相同。 1967年，绿色革命援引了农作物及其种植环境的最根本变化之一。它涵盖了机械化，引入农业化学物质，灌溉以及用高收益的混合单栽培的传统陆地更换。虽然它因在发展中国家的饥饿中挽救了大约十亿人的生命而被认为，但它实施了高化的化学输入不可持续的农业，这些农业影响了农作物，环境，相关的微生物组和我们的饮食习惯。由于亚洲水稻农业转变的速度很高，我们对过去的遗传多样性，共生关系和水稻的营养品质的了解非常有限。特别是，我们对水稻与微生物的相互作用知之甚少，这通常被认为是化学输入的可持续替代品。为了更好地理解过去的化学独立农业，并解锁可以改善可持续氮摄取的水稻特性，我建议表征东南亚历史悠久的水稻历史种群的基因组，宏基因组和化学多样性，这些群体早于绿色革命。为退化的历史植物量身定制多摩变方法并非微不足道。该项目将利用最先进的方法来用于考古学学，历史样本中营养的先驱分析，并采用新方法来精确的微生物组表征。我将进行现场实验，以测试绿前革命微生物混合物对水稻氮经济的影响。总而言之，该项目将率先开采历史作物收集，以通过多词释放农作物的丢失特性。它将激发人们对失去的生物和非生物抗性特征的寻找，并有望提高我们未来的粮食安全。