ABSTRACT
Philippine Rice Research Institute, Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, The Philippines. a Email: truongxuan893@yahoo.com b Email: egergon@yahoo.com *Corresponding author
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the main staple food crop for almost half of the world’s population (Xu et al., 2002). Rice is mainly grown in Asia and is currently expanding to other continents like Sub-Saharan Africa. With growing rice requirements, growers and research institutions are compelled to fi nd ways of increasing its productivity using the same area of production amidst the pressure of abiotic stresses owing to climatic changes. The world’s statistics have shown an increasing trend in domestic milled rice production at its current peak of 462.75 million MT. This is closely followed by increasing rice consumption at 456.79 million MT (Wailes et al., 2012). Asia, the top producer of rice, is set for a 3% gain in production to 653 million MT in 2011-2012 and Africa is set for 1% gain to 25.5 MT. In the same period, the world rice production is also predicted to hit a new record of 721 million MT or a 3% increase (FAO, 2012). While rice production increases, there is also a foreseen increase in current global population to eight billion by 2020, thus it has been estimated that 25-40% more rice must be produced to meet the global demand for the crop and to cover up the impact of climate change such as drought, submergence and salinity (Datta, 2004). Other factors contributing to yield losses such as pests and diseases must also be given due attention to further reduce their impact on rice crop production.
