article · Rice Science
Rice is a critical staple for food and nutrition security across West Africa, yet regional consumption continues to outpace production despite output doubling over the past decade. Environmental stresses severely hinder harvest potential, with drought standing out as one of the most damaging factors reducing grain yields. To safeguard production and ensure yield stability, developing drought-tolerant rice varieties is essential. Achieving this goal relies on targeted breeding approaches that combine the profiling of known quantitative trait loci with the discovery of new genetic markers. Marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, and thorough multi-locational yield trials provide the foundation for introducing robust stress tolerance. A comprehensive regional breeding framework links these genetic techniques with field testing to systematically counter drought-induced losses.
Rice provides essential nutrition across West Africa, but recurring water deficits threaten regional food security and agricultural livelihoods. Outlining systematic approaches to breed drought-tolerant crops helps researchers and agricultural planners focus on methods that protect harvests against climatic shocks. Strengthening regional capacity to develop resilient crops offers a vital step toward closing the supply deficit and supporting sustainable food production.
This work outlines breeding strategies that could enable agricultural research bodies, commercial seed companies, and plant breeding programmes to develop drought-tolerant rice varieties. The proposed integration of quantitative trait loci profiling, genomic selection, and field trials operates at an early-stage applied research level. Substantial breeding cycles, marker validation, and multi-locational performance testing will be required before resulting crop varieties reach commercial seed markets or farmers.
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Rice plays a paramount role in food and nutrition security in many West African countries. Despite the doubling of production during the last decade, rice consumption has grown faster, creating a deficit between the demand and supply. Although the West African sub-region remains the main rice-producing centre on the continent, production is severely hampered by biotic and abiotic stresses. Drought is one of the factors that most severely reduce grain yields of rice. Systems of production need to be established in order to mitigate yield loss as a result of drought. This review discusses the effects of drought on rice production in West Africa and its mitigation with an emphasis on the improvement of tolerance to drought stress. Yield stability can be achieved by developing drought-tolerant varieties through several processes encompassing profiling of known QTLs and identification of new ones, marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, and extensive multi-locational yield trials. We suggest a comprehensive strategy for breeding drought-tolerant rice varieties in West Africa.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.rsci.2022.06.002
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