Abstract
BackgroundHigh water use efficiency is essential to water-saving cropping. Morphological traits that affect photosynthetic water use efficiency are not well known. We examined whether leaf hairiness improves photosynthetic water use efficiency in rice.ResultsA chromosome segment introgression line (IL-hairy) of wild Oryza nivara (Acc. IRGC105715) with the genetic background of Oryza sativa cultivar ‘IR24’ had high leaf pubescence (hair). The leaf hairs developed along small vascular bundles. Linkage analysis in BC5F2 and F3 populations showed that the trait was governed by a single gene, designated BLANKET LEAF (BKL), on chromosome 6. IL-hairy plants had a warmer leaf surface in sunlight, probably due to increased boundary layer resistance. They had a lower transpiration rate under moderate and high light intensities, resulting in higher photosynthetic water use efficiency.ConclusionIntrogression of BKL on chromosome 6 from O. nivara improved photosynthetic water use efficiency in the genetic background of IR24.
Highlights
High water use efficiency is essential to water-saving cropping
In the BC4F4 generation derived from a cross between IR24 and IRGC105715, one of the introgression line (IL) showed the hairy-leaf trait from the sixth leaf to the flag leaf, and was named IL-hairy (Fig. 1c, d)
To identify the chromosomal segments derived from IRGC105715, we determined the genotypes of the BC4F3 parent of ILhairy using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers covering the whole rice genome (Additional file 1: Table S1)
Summary
High water use efficiency is essential to water-saving cropping. Morphological traits that affect photosynthetic water use efficiency are not well known. We examined whether leaf hairiness improves photosynthetic water use efficiency in rice. Irrigated lowlands produce 75% of all rice grain, and water-limited areas produce 23% (Maclean et al 2013). Effective use of water resources is an important target for sustainable rice cropping. Many higher plant species have leaf hairs, called glandular or nonglandular trichomes (Zeng et al 2013). These leaf hairs have important roles such as protection from herbivory by insects and infection by pathogens, reflecting excess
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