Early infection of scutellum tissue with Agrobacterium allows high-speed transformation of rice.

Several approaches have recently been adopted to improve Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of rice, both to generate the large number of T-DNA insertion plants needed for functional analysis of the rice genome, and for production of rice with additional agronomical value. However, about 3 months of in vitro culture is still required for isolation of transgenic rice plants. Here, we report the competency of scutellum tissue from 1-day pre-cultured seeds for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation.