Application for Hybrid Rice Technology at Egypt

Commercial exploitation of hybrid vigor is one of the most important applications of genetics in agriculture. It has not only contributed to food security, but has also benefited the environment, the hybrid rice Produced by crossing between two parents and the productivity increased by 20-30% than the inbred high yielding variety. The systematic of hybrid rice included three line system, two line system and One line system. The PCR technique can be used as one of the indicator for predicting the genetic purity of CMS lines, based on polymorphism among parental lines, this characteristic has been used in China to perform preliminary evaluation of the purity of hybrid rice seeds. Hybrid rice research was initiated in Egypt in 1982, to determine natural fertility restora­tion of Egyptian varieties on some Chinese CMS lines, evaluate certain CMS lines, test pro­ductivity of some hybrid varieties and to esti­mate yield and determination of seed setting percentage of some CMS lines under Egyptian conditions, but, the first Egyptian hybrid was released during 2004. For the two line system, discovery and successful utilization of environmental genic male sterility (EGMS) led to development new promising hybrids of the two lines system in hybrid rice breeding program, compared with the three-line system. EGMS trait is governed by major genes could be transferred to any genetic background and no need to use restorer genes in the male parents of two line hybrids. Finally, this system is ideal for developing indica / japonica hybrids because most japonica lines do not possess restorer genes. Molecular studies is concerning on selecting populations which can be used as the new reverse-thermo sensitive genic male sterile (rTGMS) lines to produce Japonica hybrids under Egyptian condition by using one specific SSR primer RM222.