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.

农作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世纪前种植的品种大不相同。1967年，绿色革命引发了作物及其种植环境的最根本变化之一。它包括机械化、引进农用化学品、灌溉以及用高产杂交单作代替传统的地方品种。虽然它被认为在发展中国家拯救了大约10亿人免于饥饿，但它实施了高化学投入的不可持续农业，影响了作物、环境、相关微生物组和我们的饮食习惯。由于亚洲水稻农业的快速转型，我们对水稻过去的遗传多样性，共生关系和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，而微生物经常被建议作为化学投入的可持续替代品。为了更好地了解过去的化学独立农业，并解锁水稻的特性，可以提高可持续的氮吸收，我建议在东南亚的水稻历史种群的基因组，宏基因组和化学多样性的特点早于绿色革命。为退化的历史植物量身定制多组学方法并不简单。该项目将利用考古基因组学的最新方法，对历史样本中的营养物质进行先驱分析，并采用新方法进行准确的微生物组表征。我将进行田间试验，以测试绿色革命前的微生物混合物对水稻氮经济的影响。总之，该项目将率先挖掘历史作物收藏，通过多组学解锁作物的丢失属性。它将激发寻找失去的生物和非生物抗性特征，并有望增加我们未来的粮食安全。