Rice

Rice is a member of the grass (Poaceae) family and is one of the most important food crops in the world. It is classed as the most important staple food crop globally with ca 2 billion people eating / depending on rice as the major source of nutrients every day.

Six sets of rice samples are generated for analysis within META-PHOR. Each set of rices takes about 4 months to grow, and they must be grown in particular months of the year. Harvest, drying and preparation of each set for shipment takes up to two more months. This is the only limitation to the rapid supply of samples to the META_PHOR partners in the project for metabolomics analysis.

META-PHOR varieties grown in the field at IRRI

 

Rice varieties for metabolomics analysis were specifically selected so that bioinformatics can be used to associate metabolites data with known genetic function, traits of
quality, in order to direct us towards new candidate genes for quality.

From META_PHOR an International Network for Quality Rice (INQR) was set up.(www.irri.org/inqr). The members of the INQR are people involved in quality from
every rice-growing country, and people involved in research of the traits of quality from many developed countries.
In April 2007, the the first meeting of the INQR at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). 75 people attended this meeting, including partners from META_PHOR. The people who attended this meeting will be the users of the information generated for rice, and are members of the Biology Users Group.