Two rice varieties with certain genetic differences and complementary characters are selected to cross to produce the first generation hybrid with heterosis, which is hybrid rice. Generally, hybrid rice only refers to the first generation hybrid formed by crossing two sterile lines and restorer lines with the same genetic background. The large-scale popularization of hybrid rice mainly uses rice male sterile lines as genetic tools.

Study history

The basic idea and technology of hybrid rice and its first successful realization were completed by American Henry Beach in 1963 in Indonesia. Henry Beach is also called the father of hybrid rice by some scholars, and/kloc-0 won the World Food Prize in 1996. Because of some defects in Henry Beach's ideas and schemes, it is impossible to popularize them on a large scale.

Later, I put forward a three-line breeding method for cultivating hybrid rice, and suggested that suitable wild male sterile plants could be found as the basis for cultivating hybrid rice. Although the Japanese have found wild male sterile plants through years of efforts, the effect is not very good; In addition, the Japanese also put forward a series of new rice breeding methods, such as grasping flour, but ultimately failed to complete the industrialization of hybrid rice for various reasons.