Is sea rice genetically modified rice? What are the advantages over ordinary rice?

At present, it is the season of bumper harvest, and recently, a piece of news about "Yuan Longping's team desert sea rice yield per mu exceeds 1000 jin" has been praised by the people all over the country. So, is sea rice genetically modified rice? What are the advantages over ordinary rice?

Is sea rice genetically modified rice?

Seawater rice is not transgenic rice. Seawater rice is actually a kind of saline-alkali tolerant rice variety, which is a very old rice variety. It generally grows in the beach area between wild rice and cultivated rice.

In recent years, Qingdao Rice Research and Development Center, led by Academician Yuan Longping, has devoted itself to the research and development of "sea rice". Natural salt-resistant, alkali-resistant and disease-resistant genes have been screened out by gene sequencing technology, and salt-tolerant rice varieties with per unit yield of more than 300kg/667m2 are planned to be selected within 3 years through conventional breeding, hybridization and molecular marker-assisted breeding.

Second, what are the advantages of seawater rice compared with ordinary rice?

It has stronger survival competitiveness than other ordinary rice, and has the ability to resist waterlogging, saline-alkali resistance, lodging resistance, disease and insect resistance and so on. In addition, with the development of modern social economy, the further improvement of people's living standards and the change of diet structure, people's consumption demand for rice has tended to pursue the nutritional value and health care efficacy of rice. Sea rice, also known as sea red rice, is crimson, contains natural soluble red pigment and is rich in nutrients. Sea red rice is not only rich in starch dietary fiber, amino acids, high protein, calcium, but also contains selenium, zinc, magnesium, copper, iron, molybdenum, manganese and other trace elements, and the content is higher than that of ordinary rice, and sea red rice is rich in unique active organic compound IP6, which has the efficacy of preventing and treating a variety of diseases, especially cancer prevention. Regular consumption of sea red rice has the effects of inhibiting carcinogens, preventing colon cancer, scavenging free radicals, delaying aging, tonifying blood and preventing anemia, anti-stress reaction, immune regulation and so on.

What is the value of sea rice?

1. Make use of saline-alkali land and tidal flat land to solve the food problem of population.

The scale of saline-alkali land in China is large, most of the soil is seriously salinized, rice, wheat and other food plants are difficult to grow in these saline-alkali soil. In addition, the beach will be covered by a large number of sea water, except for the growth of some mangroves, most of them are abandoned. The research and development of seawater rice can make full use of saline-alkali land and marine tidal flat to solve the food problem. Seawater rice has the ability of resistance to saline-alkali and waterlogging, can resist the damage of saline-alkali land and tidal flat, and can grow and bear fruit normally. Marine rice can grow up to two meters tall and has the ability to resist lodging. In the tidal flat, even if the sea water will completely submerge the rice, leaving only looming leaf tips, it still grows beautifully after low tide.

2. Improve the environment and produce organic green food.

The cultivation of seawater rice not only uses the tidal flat to produce food, but also can prevent the wind and waves, promote silt and protect the beach, stabilize the bank and protect the dike, purify sea water and air, and have the same ecological and social value as mangroves. The root system of seawater rice is 30cm to 40cm deep, which effectively retains land for sand, reduces sediment content in inshore waters, and increases soil organic matter. In addition, in the production process of sea rice, it can grow well and produce organic green food without using chemical fertilizers or spraying pesticides.

3. The value of scientific research

Seawater rice has the ability of waterlogging resistance, saline-alkali resistance, lodging resistance, disease and insect resistance and so on. in order to obtain better varieties, seawater rice can be crossed with common high-yield rice to get better varieties, which can not only get high yield, but also grow in saline-alkali soil. and can make better use of abandoned land. Some genes with specific functions can also be cloned and introduced into different species.

To sum up, sea rice is not genetically modified rice and is more resistant than other common rice.