Rice Science

Rice Science

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Three-Line Hybrid Rice in China: Sustained Improvements in Yield, Quality, and Resistance Over Fifty Years

  1. State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology and Breeding, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou 310006, China; Rice Research Institute, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fuzhou 350018, China; National Center for Gene Research, State Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200233, China; National Agricultural Technology Extension and Service Center, Beijing 100125, China; #These authors contributed equally to this work
  • Contact: GONG Junyi; XIE Huaan; HAN Bin; CHENG Shihua
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFF1003301) and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. LD25C130001 and LZ24C130004).

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Abstract: China pioneered the commercial application of hybrid rice (Oryza sativa L.) throughout the world. Not only did Chinese scientists demonstrate that self-pollinating plants can achieve hybrid vigor, which was a groundbreaking theoretical breakthrough; they also established commercial rice breeding as one of China's most advanced agricultural models. In doing so, they made remarkable contributions to national food security. This paper looks back at 50 years of evolution of the three-line varieties of rice approved by the state and provinces through analyzing the following: statistics of the approval of varieties of individual restorer/sterile lines, dynamics of the area of adoption of specific rice varieties, and phenotypic changes in key agronomic traits, including yield and the grades of quality and resistance. The study comprehensively reviews China’s extraordinary journey in three-line hybrid rice breeding over the past half century, summarizes major achievements and lessons learned, and explores future directions for the three-line breeding of rice.

Key words: rice breeding; three-line hybrid, approved variety, restorer line, male-sterile line