Rice cultivation is transitioning from transplanting seedlings into the fields, to direct seeding onto the fields. This comes with a price: the field cannot be flooded during seeding and germination. As a consequence, this sustainable weed suppression is temporarily unavailable, leading to improved opportunities for weeds to proliferate. We studied rice shoot architecture to define traits, and their associated genetic loci, for optimal shading capacity of the rice crops itself. This shading caused by rice plants, would help suppress weeds. In our open access paper linked below, you can find our results obtained from screening a rice diversity panel. We provide both a combination of traits for optimal shading capacity, as well as haplotypes that positively contribute to shading capacity.
This work was led by Martina Huber and was a collaboration between Utrecht University NL (Rashmi Sasidharan, Kaisa Kajala, Hans van Veen, Basten Snoek, Justine Toulotte, Ronald Pierik), Boyce Thomson Institute USA (Magdalena Julkowska) and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Philippines.

Huber et al., 2023: https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10419