**7. Conclusion and future prospects**

Aroma in rice is a key quality trait determining its acceptability and marketability. 2AP has gained major importance among other volatiles as the primary compound for aroma. Aroma compound is encoded by betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (*badh2*) gene also called fragrance (*fgr*) gene which is located on chromosome 8 and the level of aroma depends on this gene caused by mutation in *badh2* of 8 bp deletion and 3 SNPs. Apart from Basmati genotypes possessing long slender grains, only few other medium/short slender grain rice varieties possessing aroma are in the market. Those short/medium slender aromatic genotypes are not high yielding and possess several other disadvantages. Development of aromatic rice varieties possessing superior grain qualities through conventional or molecular breeding approaches takes considerable number of years and in some cases retaining the superior grain qualities of elite genotypes still remains a challenge. In recent years, genome editing technologies like TALENs, ZFNs and CRISPR/Cas9 has been employed in developing superior quality rice grains and it has opened new avenues for accelerated improvement of rice varieties thereby gaining competitive advantage in improving economy on national and global scale. These new technologies seems to be an attractive strategy to overcome the number of years required for developing desired genotypes and also to overcome the problems due to linkage drag. It will accelerate the cultivation of new aromatic rice varieties with high quality, yield and multiple resistance.
