Upgrading the genome of an elite japonica rice variety Kongyu 131 for lodging resistance improvement.

Developing a new rice variety requires tremendous efforts and years of input. To improve the defect traits of the excellent varieties becomes more cost and time efficient than breeding a completely new variety. Kongyu 131 is a high-performing japonica variety with early maturity, high yield, wide adaptability and cold resistance, but the poor-lodging resistance hinders the industrial production of Kongyu 131 in the Northeastern China.

Improving the blast resistance of the elite rice variety Kongyu-131 by updating the pi21 locus.

Background: As an elite japonica rice variety, Kongyu-131 has been cultivated for over 20 years in the third accumulated temperature zone of Heilongjiang Province, China. However, the cultivated area of Kongyu-131 has decreased each year due to extensive outbreaks of rice blast. To achieve the goals of improving blast resistance and preserving other desirable traits in Kongyu-131, a genome-updating method similar to repairing a bug in a computer program was adopted in this study.

Updating the Genome of the Elite Rice Variety Kongyu131 to Expand Its Ecological Adaptation Region.

As an elite rice variety cultivated in the third accumulative temperature belt in Heilongjiang province, China, Kongyu131 has many excellent traits, such as high quality, high stability, early maturation and cold resistance. However, as with other crop varieties, Kongyu131 has regional restrictions, exhibiting decreased yields when grown at low latitudes. To address these problems, two populations were constructed from cross between and varieties.

Improving rice grain length through updating the GS3 locus of an elite variety Kongyu 131.

Background: Traditional crop breeding has made significant achievement meet food needs worldwide. However, the way has some inevitable problems including time-consuming, laborious, low predictability and reproducibility. In this study, we updated the GRAIN SIZE 3 (GS3) locus to improve the grain length of a major cultivate variety of Kongyu 131 at Heilongjiang Province, the northernmost region of China.

Updating the elite rice variety Kongyu 131 by improving the Gn1a locus.

Background: Kongyu 131 is an elite japonica rice variety of Heilongjiang Province, China. It has the characteristics of early maturity, superior quality, high yield, cold tolerance and wide adaptability. However, there is potential to improve the yield of Kongyu 131 because of the relatively few grains per panicle compared with other varieties.