Water-saving and drought-resistance rice and its development strategy

Water-saving and drought-resistance rice (WDR) is a new type of rice with not only high yields and good quality, but also water-saving and drought-resistance characteristics. When this crop is irrigated, its grain yields and quality are equivalent to those of paddy rice, but its water requirement is only half that of paddy rice. It retains good yields in uplands because of its drought resistance. Furthermore, the sowing and cultivation of this rice requires lower inputs and less energy, and thus, it is very environmentally friendly. Here, we summarize the physiological and genetic mechanisms of water saving and drought resistance in WDR varieties, and the achievements in WDR breeding and genetics in the past decade. We discuss: 1) drought avoidance and drought tolerance, both of which improve yields under drought stress; 2) methods to evaluate drought resistance that have been used in breeding programs; 3) analysis and discovery of drought-resistance gene resources; and 4) analysis of the molecular mechanism of WDR in WDR varieties.