Proportion of parental line (A receptor and R pollinator) seeds improving rice hybrid production

Abstract

The high price of rice hybrid seeds is one of the major limiting factors for increasing the use of this technology. An important step toward minimizing high rice hybrid seed cost is developing techniques that help improve hybrid seed yield. Our goal was to determine the proportion of seeds of line A (receptor) and line R (pollinator) that, under mixed sowing, would allow optimized rice hybrid seed production and grain quality. Trials were performed for two growing seasons in the southern region of Brazil. The cultivar INTA Puita was used as a pollinator and line 464 A as receptor. The experimental design was a randomized block with four replications. Treatments included six proportions of seeds of the INTA Puita (0.75, 1.5, 3.0, 6.0, 12.0, and 24.00%) mixture with seeds of line 464 A (99.25, 98.50, 97.00, 94.00, 88.00, and 76%, respectively). By increasing the percentage of the pollinator seeds (INTA Puita CL) from 0.75 to 24% in the mixture with the receptor (line 464 A), we increased yield of INTA Puita CL grains (7 to 2676 kg ha^-1) and hybrid seeds (279 to 1493 kg ha^-1). The mixture of different proportions of INTA Puita CL (pollinator) with the receptor (line 464 A) did not change the rice grain quality or the production cost. The cost of production per kg of hybrid seeds decreased quadratically with the increasing percentage of the pollinator (INTA Puita CL), from US$ 6.71 to US$ 1.23. Revenue achieved from the commercialization of the grains of INTA Puita CL with hybrid seeds 464 A showed quadratic increases with the increased percentage of INTA Puita cl in the mixture. Our results showed a potential technique that could be used to improve hybrid seed production, reduce cost per kg of hybrid seed and improve revenue from producing rice hybrid seeds.