In: Biology
Briefly describe, or outline, the origins and evolution of rice and its major species/cultivars
Q.1
Ans. Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza glaberrima (African rice) or Oryza sativa (Asian rice). As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in Asia and Africa. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production. Origin of rice domestication has been a subject of much debate among those who study crop history and anthropology, whether rice originated in India or China. Asian rice Oryza sativa is one of the oldest crop species. It has tens of thousands of varieties and two major subspecies, Japonica and Indica. The current scientific consensus based on archeological and linguistic evidence says that rice was first domesticated in the Yangtze river basin in China. Because of the functional allele for nonshattering, the critical indicator of domestication in grains, as well as five other single-nucleotide polymorphisms is identical in both Indica and Japonica.