The Rice Quality Program of the USDA - ARS Rice Research

Since the establishment of the USDA-ARS Rice Quality Laboratory in the 1950s, we have committed to provide service to the Federal and State breeding programs by evaluating U.S. breeding lines to ensure that all future U.S. varieties have quality traits acceptable to the rice industry. In addition, we have been conducting research to better understand cooking and processing traits of importance to the rice industry, and to develop new and rapid screening methods for these traits utilizing new analytical and molecular-genetic technologies. We also have been investigating the health beneficial compounds in rice and determining factors affecting the storage stability of whole grain. Cooked rice texture and rice processing properties are strongly associated with the amylose content. Recent studies (1, 2) conducted in the Rice Research Unit, which were collaborative efforts among scientists Bob Fjellstrom, Shannon Pinson, Christine Bergman, and Ming Chen, and were partially funded by the Rice Foundation, have established the correlations of Waxy gene sequence variations with the amylose content and rice processing properties. Waxy gene is the gene that synthesizes the enzyme called granule bound starch synthase, which in turn is responsible for the synthesis of one of the rice starch components, amylose. The results from these research studies provided a powerful tool for the rice breeders by enabling them to select breeding materials for the desired amylose-content quality using a moleculargenetics tool, the molecular marker, without the influence of environment. The environment is known to affect the amylose content. We are currently developing quick and easy molecular-marker The Rice Quality Program of the USDA-ARS Rice Research Unit