Rice growth adapting to deepwater

Flooding is one of the most hazardous natural disasters, and there are several levels of flooding. Recently, research on flood-tolerant rice plants revealed that some rice varieties have evolved to overcome two different flood types, ‘flash flood’ and ‘deepwater flood’, using two different mechanisms, and their molecular mechanisms were determined. During flash flooding, the tolerant plants that are fully submerged for a few weeks stop elongating and thus avoid energy consumption that will be needed to restart growth when the water recedes. On the contrary, during deepwater flooding, with water depth up to several meters for several months, the deepwater-flood-tolerant rice plants promote elongation of internodes to keep the foliage above the water surface and thus allow respiration and photosynthesis.

Research highlights▶ Rice plants have developed two different strategies for avoiding deepwater. ▶ Sub1A confers the ‘flash-flood’ tolerance to stop the growth. ▶ SNORKEL genes confer the ‘deepwater-flood’ tolerance to elongate internodes. ▶ Sub1A and SNORKEL genes encode ERF-type transcription factor.