Research Projects

Rice, a staple food for over 5 billion people, faces challenges in cultivation due to climate change, salinity build-up, and human interventions in coastal regions. The coastal belt of India, rich in eco-geographical diversity, has genetic variation for rice, which is underutilized due to a lack of understanding of the physiological, molecular, and genetic mechanisms governing complex traits. Current breeding activity requires genetic diversification, novel superior alleles, and genomic resources, which landraces offer great opportunities for. To develop superior rice genotypes, it is crucial to characterize, evaluate, and introduce these landraces to coastal regions. These landraces are sources of resistance to various stresses, including salinity, submergence, anoxic germination, mineral toxicity, heavy metal toxicity, and acidic soils. Modern genomics-assisted breeding methods, including marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, targeted haplotype selection, and introgressive hybridization, can help develop superior rice genotypes. This study proposes stringent phenotypic evaluation for several morpho-physiological traits governing salinity tolerance in over 150 native rice landraces. Field evaluations will be conducted under low and high salinity conditions, and hydroponic screening will be done for seedling stage salinity tolerance. Genotypic variations will be mined using Genotyping-by-sequencing, and significant genomic-variant-trait-associations (GVTAs) will be identified using genome wide association studies (GWAS). The study aims to identify superior germplasm sources for component traits governing seedling and reproductive stage salinity tolerance, identify novel genomic regions governing salinity tolerance, and initiate genomic selection breeding strategies in rice for coastal regions.