Foreword

The genomics era has given us major advances in our understanding of the rice plant and its relationship with its biophysical environment. The time is right, then, to examine this understanding and speculate where and how we should proceed to address the remaining problems. Yulin Jia and colleagues present an update on some of the most serious problems that have affected rice production. Our understanding of bacterial blight, blast, and sheath blight has led to significant advances in their management and control. However, much postgenomic work remains to be done.

Because rice production has become more intensive and management options more sophisticated, new challenging disease problems are emerging. The treatment of false smut and bacterial panicle blight will be important resources for all working in rice improvement and management. Both of these diseases have long been considered to be minor, almost nuisance, problems in the field. Their emergence to economic levels of importance is a mystery that must be solved. The potential for the false smut to produce mycotoxins adds urgency to the challenge.

There is a welcome inclusion of a range of abiotic challenges such as plant nutrition and arsenic uptake. These are critical to the sustainability and safety of rice production. Placing these in the context of climate change is very important for readers because society seeks to reduce the climate footprint of agriculture worldwide. There are significant tradeoffs that will have to be confronted and this volume should help inform those charged with making decisions.

There is an interesting addition to the disease and management emphasis in the book: the treatment of the nutritional value of rice. There is little doubt that as consumers become more sophisticated, they will demand more nutritious rice. Likewise, rice with starch composition that yields lower glycemic index will be an important future focus for rice breeders. And food processors will require different starch characteristics as they increase the use of rice in processed foods.

The book's orientation is toward important challenges facing rice production in the United States. There is very good treatment of a number of specific breeding challenges around hybrid rice and indeed unique opportunities offered with hybrid rice breeding. Nonetheless, the authors address a number of areas that are of broad interest to the global rice community. This work is ambitious and is an important resource for students and all those engaged in the production side of the rice sector.

**II**

**Chapter 8 109**

Modern Cultural Practices **125**

**Chapter 9 127** Protecting Rice Grains from Arsenic Toxicity through Cultural Management:

**Chapter 10 153**

Rice Utilization, Processing and Marketing **165**

**Chapter 11 167**

Modern Toolboxes for Crop Protection **181**

**Chapter 12 183**

Formulation and Nutritional Assessment of Recipes En Route for Awareness

*by David Fernández-Chapa, Jesica Ramírez-Villalobos and Luis Galán-Wong*

*by Rai Mukkram Ali Tahir, Noor-us-Sabah, Muhammad Afzal, Ghulam Sarwar* 

Disease Resistance and Susceptibility Genes to Bacterial Blight of Rice

Smart Nutrition Management of Rice Crop under Climate Change

*by Tariq Mahmood and Frank F. White*

**Section 3**

Bangladesh Perspective

*and Ijaz Rasool Noorka*

of Coarse Rice Consumption

Toxic Potential of *Bacillus thuringiensis*: An Overview

*by Abdul Aziz*

Environment

**Section 4**

*by A. Arun*

**Section 5**

**Robert S. Zeigler** Director General Emeritus, International Rice Research Institute

Preface

Rice (*Oryza sativa*) feeds more than 3.5 billion people on planet Earth, but more rice will be needed to meet the demand of population growth. Rice requires more water compared to other crops, as noted in the translation for the Chinese name for rice, "Water Grain." Today, rice has been grown in a wide range of areas from rainfed low- and uplands to irrigated areas and in many areas where other crops would fail. As the standard of living increases, more people are moving to cities and more rice fields are being replaced due to urban development. Rice production has been subjected to an increasing amount of constraints, including shortages of arable land, labor, water, and biotic and abiotic stressors. Consequentially, the supply of water is decreasing drastically: more wetlands will disappear, and more water will be contaminated, resulting in an increased concern for sustainability and the

Rice was the first crop whose genome sequence was reliably determined and for whom tremendous resources composed of worldwide rice germplasm collections was assembled. Many mapping populations, genetic stocks, mutants and wild rice relatives, and high-density genetic and expression maps for rice have also been accumulated rapidly. Many of the global research accomplishments during the early 21st century have built the fundamental basis of rice grain protection through an improved understanding of genetics, genomics, and host–pathogen interactions.

In this book, a wide range of topics is included such as rice germplasm collection, methods to increase yield, nutritional benefits, rice response mechanisms to increasingly virulent pathogens, functional genomics, and host–pathogen interactions. This book is composed of 12 chapters from scientists around the globe and it is hoped that it will spread their ideas for and successes with safeguarding rice crops to ensure sufficient food supplies that meet human needs on Earth for years to

I hope that the knowledge from this book will benefit rice specialists, farmers, and students who are interested in molecular genetics, biology, pathology, and crop protection. This book could not have been prepared without the help of many scientists and specialists who generously contributed their time and expertise in writing and production. All authors of this book are appreciated for their extra efforts to contribute their knowledge, skills, visions, and philosophies despite the various imposing deadlines. Special appreciation is given to my daughter Mary S. Jia who assisted me in editing and completing this book. The top-notch research that has been conducted around the world is fragmented and unhelpful to students and other scientists who are seeking rice crop improvement. It is only through comprehensive reviews, such as this book, that the spread of such knowledge may be accomplished to propagate the current techniques and theories that may, one day,

This book is dedicated to Professor Wenrong Liu (a plant pathology laboratory instructor of Xichang Agricultural College, China), deceased on February 20, 1992, and Mr. Robert Spencer Edsall Jr. (a farmer, USA), deceased on May 10, 2019, who

environmental consequences of rice production.

come.

facilitate world peace.
