One Tough Grain of Rice

Just how does rice grow in the arid, harsh climate of West Africa? A $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help UA researchers unlock the genetic code of the region’s cultivated rice. Students from the UA and Tucson high schools will help sequence the West African rice genome, under the guidance of BIO5 Institute members Rod A. Wing and Steve Rounsley. Since it was cultivated under harsher conditions than the Asian variety, it is better adapted to withstand heat and drought. Understanding those adaptations could result in breeding hardier Asian strains, preventing starvation throughout the world.