Wild Rice in Thailand

Abstract

Thailand contains a wide diversity of rice germ plasm. Different types of rice are distributed throughout the country. Six wild rice species exist in Thailand, namely, Oryza rufipogon, O. nivara, O. fatua,O. officinalis, O. ridleyi and O. granulata The wild related species species, Oryza rufipogon, O. nivara, O.fatua, are frequently found every where and are usually known as weeds in paddy fields. However, the endangered species, O. officinalis, O. ridleyi and O. granulate are very rare in natural habitats.
Most utilization of wild rice has been successful in transferring pest and disease resistant genes to cultivars. However, in Thailand work has been rather limited, due to constraints of time, labour, funding, as well as specialists. Wild rice collections is a difficult talk due to the various flowering dates, high grain shattering and high sterility of the wild rice species. As a result, testing and evaluation of desirable characters has not been widely conducted. Wild rice seed has to be rejuvenated prior to seed conservation. Hence, it requires much time and effort. At present, the National Rice Seed Storage Laboratory for Genetic Resources conserves the six wild species, in a total of 610 accessions for further use in the future.