ScienceDaily Magazine -- Researchers At The University Of Washington And In China Release Genome Sequence Of Rice There is a reason that researchers began with the variety of rice that they did. The sequence is of the form of rice, Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica, that is the most commonly grown in China and many Asian-Pacific areas. It is the paternal cultivar of a super-hybrid rice, LYP9, which has 20 to 30 percent more yield than other rice varieties. The sequencing center is also working on the maternal cultivar of LYP9, to better understand why hybrid varieties of rice grow so much more vigorously.
Rice has the smallest genome among the major cereal crops, and is expected to be a model for other commonly cultivated cereal crops, including corn and wheat, whose genomes are six and 40 times larger than rice. The researchers say that they have learned quite a lot about rice, but it is still too early to translate their findings into better crops.