Technology and the Future of Rice and Wheat Research in India

GS-III | Agriculture | Biotechnology | Gene Editing | Food Security | Agricultural Research

Introduction

• Technological Transformation: The rapid changes that technology is making to the methods we use for growing both rice and wheat provide India with an excellent opportunity to become a leader in this field if we can once again attract students back into the study of the basic principles of plant sciences.
• Anti-GMO Voices: Aspiring biology researchers are leaving the area of GMO research because of the extreme nature of the anti-GMO voices and are moving into other areas of life science where similar techniques can be used.
• India’s Food Security: India’s food security relies on its ability to produce enough food, particularly through production of rice and wheat. These two crops consume over 50% of the land used for agriculture, and they are also responsible for providing most of the caloric intake of the people of India.
• Changes in the Environment: Extreme weather conditions (climate change, hurricanes/tornadoes, droughts/floods), and growing pressure from society to reduce pesticide/fertilizer applications while maintaining high crop yields are creating an extremely large challenge to meet the requirements of today’s agriculture.

Public Institutions and Seed Supply

• National Seeds Corporation (NSC): Founded in 1963, it works with state-owned seed companies and state-level agricultural colleges to provide reliable early stage seed availability.
• Role of ICAR: The ICAR laboratories and the state agricultural universities produce the highest quality “breeder seeds”; these are then multiplied through public/private partnerships to create “foundation seeds”.
• Wheat Seed Market: In the certified seed market for wheat, public sector organizations provide most of the seeds available. Private sector organizations have a very small portion of the market, approximately 5%, but are increasing their share of the market by about 8% annually.
• Rice Seed Market: The rice seed market is dominated by private companies who produce hybrid seeds, and on the other hand public sector organizations primarily provide seed to small scale farmers.
• Public Availability of New Varieties: The introduction of new varieties developed by publicly funded institutions will be made available to both public and private registered seed companies so that there can be a broad and affordable, as well as equitable, dissemination of these varieties.

Gene Editing in Rice: India’s 2025 Breakthrough

• CRISPR Technology: India is the first nation in the world that allows farmers to produce rice through the use of CRISPR technology. After testing the varieties of rice produced with the help of CRISPR technology in the field, the scientific community has approved the seeds for distribution among farmers.
• DRR Dhan-100: This variety has a shorter maturation period of 130 days as opposed to the 150-day maturation period of the baseline strain. In addition, it yields approximately 20% more rice than the baseline strain, with an estimated yield of 5.4 tonnes per hectare. Furthermore, the use of water and labour is reduced when growing the DRR Dhan-100 variety.
• Pusa DST Rice-1: Bred for growing relatively well in high salt/alkali soils; its performance in such areas was approximately 10–30% better than existing varieties.
• Environmental Benefits: The government has said that they will be using less water and fertilizer, which will result in reduced greenhouse gases being released into our environment.

Scientific Basis of the Two Rice Varieties

• DRR Dhan-100: The target gene produces an enzyme which breaks down cytokinin, a plant growth regulator responsible for promoting spikelet development within a rice panicle. CRISPR editing of this gene partially inhibits its function, thus enabling cytokinin to accumulate and ultimately enhancing the number of spikelets and grains produced.
• Earlier Research: In 2005, a Japanese research group led by Motoyuki Ashikari found that a grain-number trait was associated with a small natural deletion in the same gene in a high-yielding wild rice species. ICAR then replicated this finding using artificial means.
• Pusa DST Rice-1: In 2020, researchers at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, under the leadership of Viswanathan Chinnusamy, used the CRISPR/Cas9 system to remove part of the OsDST gene. Plants that resulted from this modification exhibited larger leaves, reduced numbers of stomata, and increased tolerance to salinity.
• Salt Tolerance: The survival rate of plants subjected to salt stress increased to approximately 65% when compared to only 20% for plants that were not modified.
• Gene-Editing Results: The results of gene-editing, in terms of both forms of the gene-editing tools being absent in the resulting strains, are identical to what would result from traditional mutagenesis and breeding. However, the use of gene editing allows these results to be obtained in a much shorter period of time, with greater precision.

Apomixis: Preserving Hybrid Vigour

• Meaning: Plants can avoid standard sexual reproduction and fertilization by using apomixis, allowing them to keep their parent’s desired characteristics, or “hybrid vigor”, for future generations.
• Scientific Breakthrough: The first time it was demonstrated as a scientific breakthrough in rice was in 2018. It was done by Venkatesan Sundaresan and Imtiyaz Khanday at the University of California, Davis.
• Research Progress: Success rates for the development of apomictic varieties of rice have been estimated at approximately 90%, and other researchers are now investigating the possibility of developing apomictic varieties of maize and sorghum.
• Recognition: Sundaresan won the Wolf Prize for Agriculture in 2024 with Elliot Meyerowitz and Joanne Chory. In December of 2025, Sundaresan and Khanday were awarded the VinFuture Special Prize for their work developing self-cloning crop technology.
• Benefits to Small-Scale Farmers: Small-scale farmers will be able to save and reuse seed from their best performing plants while maintaining the quality of the seed and avoiding the cost of buying new seed each year.
• Challenges of Implementation: Field testing across multiple environments, obtaining regulatory approvals, and producing large quantities of seeds.

Developments in Wheat Research

• Climate-Resilient Crops: A total of 184 new crop varieties were released by the government in 2011. Of these, 25 were different types of crops. Among the releases were some climate-resilient wheat lines that will likely be available to farmers within three years.
• Hybrid Wheat: Due to the complexity of the floral biology of wheat, hybridisation has continued to be a challenge. Private companies (e.g., Mahyco and Nuziveedu) have contributed to the development of hybrid wheat.
• HB4 Wheat: HB4 is a Genetically Engineered (GE) trait that was created using a gene from sunflowers. This GE trait will allow the wheat to withstand drought conditions. Bioceres Crop Solutions, an Argentinean company, has developed this GE trait. HB4 wheat is not a new form of gene editing, but rather a genetically engineered trait.
• Global Approvals: The HB4 transgenic wheat was approved for commercial growth in Argentina, as well as a limited amount of land for commercial growth in both Brazil and Paraguay.
• United States Approval: In August of 2024, the U.S. government approved the growing of HB4 in the U.S.; however, there are many issues that will need to be addressed prior to wide-scale adoption of HB4 by American farmers. Some of those issues include the need to conduct field trials with HB4 in the U.S., integrate HB4 into existing American wheat varieties and obtain approval for exports from the U.S. of products containing HB4.
• Australia’s Research: HB4 field trials have been approved in Australia, and the University of Adelaide is developing higher-yielding wheat and barley varieties through genetic engineering. InterGrain and Inari are conducting research into CRISPR gene editing, with a goal of increasing wheat yields by 10%.

Way Forward

• Fundamental Research: Invest in plants’ genetic makeup, physical functions, growth processes and interactions between host organisms and pathogens.
• Public-Sector Research: The public sector can help farmers adopt new breeding methods by using India’s public sector-led breeding system.
• Seed-System Adaptation: As apomixis is used more frequently by private companies who are investing in Indian seeds, the seed system will need to be adapted.
• Collaborative Research: Collaborative international research projects, along with field trial experiments, can contribute significantly to advancing genetic editing research in wheat and other crops.

Conclusion

Public sector controls are in place for how India breeds wheat and rice, so the use of new gene-editing techniques without introducing foreign genes can be offered to farmers. The development of fundamental research and the adaptation of the seed system are as critical as technology innovation.

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. What role do emerging technologies like CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and apomixis have to play in transforming rice and wheat production systems in India? Discuss the possible benefits of these technologies, as well as the scientific challenges that exist, and how they may impact food security and small farmers.