Japanese biotechnologists on Sunday said they had developed a rice plant with deeper roots that can sustain high yields in droughts that wipe out conventional rice crops.
It is the third breakthrough in new cereal strains in less than two years, boosting the quest to feed the world's spiralling population at a time of worsening climate change.
Writing in the journal Nature Genetics, a team led by Yusaku Uga of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba describe how they found a remarkable gene in a rice plant cultivated in the dry uplands of the Philippines.
READ MORE ON PHYS.ORG
New drought-resistant rice has deeper roots allowing for increased yields in dry times
