Current status of hybrid rice in China

The present status and its prospects of hybrid rice in China were presented in this paper. The three-line system in use has been the most important method for rice heterotic breeding, and this method is expected to remain effective for next decade with necessary improvements of cms systems and restorer lines. It was suggested that the use of anther culture techniques to expedite the transfer of restorer gene from indica or indica/japonica derivative rice and the 2-D electrophoretic method to identify restorer genes in japonica and indica/japonica derivative cultivars would be useful to develop japonica type hybrid rice in temperate areas. In recent years, the two-line method using environmentally-sensitive genic male sterility(PGMS or TGMS) has received much more attention. It offers many advantages to simplify the procedure of seed production, remove the restriction of restorer gene and overcome the negative effects of male-sterile cytoplasms. The availability of the two-line system would pave the way for rice breeders to achieve breakthrough in the plateau of current three-line hybrid rice by developing indica/japonica hybrid rice. Finally, authors presented evidents to elucidate the possibility to develop true-breeding hybrid rice with permanently fixed heterosis by using apomictic rice. Five main methods currently used in apomictic rice breeding were introduced and discussed briefly.