Rice Improvement in Anticipation to The Impact of Global Climate Change at-LIPI, Proceeding International Seminar on Technology Innovation for Increasing Production and Conserving Environment Under Global Climate Change

Rice prone to loses due to biotic and abiotic stresses. Global climate change, causing unpredictable wet season and prolonged dry season, and population increase are putting pressures on rice production. To maintain high productivity during stress periods, increasing the stress resistance to biotic (pests diseases) and abiotic (drought, high salt, submergence, etc) stresses of rice are priorities to Indonesia. This presentation is focused on our attempts to improve rice tolerance against drought and high salinity stresses, by identification of rice mutants and isolations of the genes responsible for the mutations. This gene discovery attempts are performed by employing insertional mutagenesis approach using Agrobacterium T-DNA transformation and Ac/Ds transposon. Drought and high salinity tolerance are two of the most complex mechanisms as they vary considerably depending on types, timing in relation to plant growth stage and intensity of stress. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of drought and salinity resistance in rice, which have been understood to be controled by multiple genes, is important to improve rice tolerance. Two aproaches are applied to study drought and high salt tolerant mechanisms in rice in our attempt to improved drought and salinity tolerant cultivars. The first is by developing and screening rice insertional mutant population harboring Ds transposon and activation-tag followed by identification of interesting mutants and isolation of responsible genes. The second is by isolation and functional study of transcription factors known to be responsive to drought stresses in rice. We have identified mutant lines tolerant to drought and high salt concentration (simulated using PEG6000 and NaCl, respectively), and the genes that may involve in the drought simulated tolerant mechanisms. Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development Hal. 61-67