Oryza rufipogon
Encyclopedia
Oryza rufipogon, known as brownbeard rice and red rice is a member of the genus Oryza
. It has a close evolutionary relation to Oryza sativa
, the rice
grown as a major food crop throughout the world. O. rufipogon is listed as a "noxious weed" by the United States, and is listed as a noxious weed in Alabama, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont. According to the North American Plant Protection Association, O. rufipogon blends in with cultivated O. sativa so well that it cannot be detected. In this position it competes with the cultivated rice and uses valuable fertilizer and space. O. rufipogon sheds most of its seeds before the harvest, therefore contributing little to the overall yield. In addition, the rice grains produced by the plant are not eaten by consumers, who see it as a strange foreign particle in otherwise white rice.
In India
, the Pallikaranai
marshland contains the wild rice Oryza rufipogon, described by Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) as a "precious germ plasm."
Oryza
Oryza is a genus of seven to twenty species of grasses in the tribe Oryzeae, within the subfamily Bambusoideae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Northern Australia and Africa...
. It has a close evolutionary relation to Oryza sativa
Oryza sativa
Oryza sativa, commonly known as Asian rice, is the plant species most commonly referred to in English as rice. Oryza sativa is the cereal with the smallest genome, consisting of just 430Mb across 12 chromosomes...
, the rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
grown as a major food crop throughout the world. O. rufipogon is listed as a "noxious weed" by the United States, and is listed as a noxious weed in Alabama, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont. According to the North American Plant Protection Association, O. rufipogon blends in with cultivated O. sativa so well that it cannot be detected. In this position it competes with the cultivated rice and uses valuable fertilizer and space. O. rufipogon sheds most of its seeds before the harvest, therefore contributing little to the overall yield. In addition, the rice grains produced by the plant are not eaten by consumers, who see it as a strange foreign particle in otherwise white rice.
Precious germ plasm
A paper on conservation genetics of wild rice in the journal Molecular Ecology has this to say about O.rufipogon: "This is the most agriculturally important but seriously endangered wild rice species."In India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, the Pallikaranai
Pallikaranai
Pallikaranai is a town in Tambaram Taluk of Kancheepuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is now one of the Chennai prime suburbs.-Demographics:...
marshland contains the wild rice Oryza rufipogon, described by Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) as a "precious germ plasm."