This book offers comprehensive coverage of important grain cereals including their origin and distribution, crop gene pool, level of diversity, production constraints, traits of importance for genetic base widening, crop improvement methodologies, genome mapping, genomics for breeding, and future strategies. The chapters, contributed by eminent crop researchers from around the world, provide rare insights into the crop-specific constraints and prospects drawing from their substantial experience. As such, the book offers an essential source of information for grain cereals scientists, teachers, students, policy planners and developmental experts alike. Grain cereals, which comprise rice, wheat, maize, barley, oats, sorghum and millets, are members of the grass family. These crops are vital to human nutrition, thanks to their roles as staple food crops in different parts of the globe. Some of them are rich sources of carbohydrates, which provide energy, while others are important sources of minerals, vitamins and proteins, in addition to their medicinal properties. In most cereals, the existing variability among elite germplasm has been exploited to attain a desirable level of productivity. However, to make further breakthroughs in enhancing yield and improving stability in future crop cultivars, new sources of genes/alleles need to be identified in wild/weedy species and incorporated into the cultivated varieties. Though there have been many publications on various aspects of grain cereal improvement in the recent past, to date this essential information has remained scattered among different periodicals.

There are few more emotive, or important, crops in the world than rice – the staple food for a huge proportion of the world’s population. This volume presents the latest results of research in crop improvement as well as in molecular and cellular activities in rice. It consists of 26 chapters and is divided into the following four sections: Genome-wide and genome-based research; Signal transduction and development; Evolution and ecology; Improvement of rice.

The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.

Rice is a staple food for half of the worlds population mostly in Asia. Productivity of rice has largely been improved since the Green Revolution in 1960s. Further improvement of rice yield is necessary to keep pace with population growth, which is a challenging task for breeders. This book, Rice - Germplasm, Genetics and Improvement, as its name implies, comprehensively reviews current knowledge in germplasm exploration, genetic basis of complex traits, and molecular breeding strategies in rice. In the germplasm part, we highlight the application of wild rice in rice breeding. In the genetics part, most of the complex traits related with yield, disease, quality have been covered. In the improvement part, Chinese experiences in hybrid rice breeding have been summarized together with many molecular breeding practices scattering in different chapters.

Genetics and breeding of agronomic traits. Genetic diversity, evolution, and alien introgression. Molecular markers, QTL mapping, and marker-assisted selection. Genomics. Gene isolation and function. Tissue culture and transformation. Genetics of rice pathogens.