— 30 IREC Farmers' Newsletter No. 201 — Autumn 2019 — 30 IREC Farmers’ Newsletter No. 201 — Autumn 2019 Rice breeding in Australia – challenges and opportunities Plant breeding often has been described as an endless task because there are always improvements that can be made in response to changes in the environment or market. New varieties are the primary output of a breeding program and have improvements in at least one character compared to the current varieties. However there will always be improvements needed in the future especially regarding improved yield and quality, as well as other traits. RICE breeding has long history in New South Wales. After the initial introduction of varieties from California, USA, in the 1920s, a rice breeding program was formally established at Yanco around 1928. The early phase of the breeding program focused on preliminary testing, seed purification and re-selection of these introduced varieties. It soon became clear that new varieties adapted to local conditions had to be developed rather than imported. There were major disruptions in breeding due to World War II until the mid-1950s. Since then, breeders based at Yanco have developed a wide range of over 20 varieties with different grain quality types. Since 2011, the rice breeding program has been based on a partnership between NSW DPI and SunRice, with funding support provided by AgriFutures. Plant breeding in a nutshell (and why it is complicated) There are two universal features of breeding programs regardless of the crop species. Firstly, breeding programs require large logistical operations, similar to a factory production line. Secondly, all plant breeding programs require a long time to develop new varieties, which is related to the biology of the crop species, because self-pollinated crops like rice are not ‘genetically stable’ during early generations. There are two common elements of crop breeding programs: l  crossing (also called ‘hybridisation’) l selection. The purpose of crossing is to create plants with new genetic combinations by combining genes from both the female and male parents. After crossing, large breeding populations (usually tens or hundreds of thousands of genetically different individual plants) derived from many specific cross combinations are produced. Selection involves evaluation of the new plants for agronomic and quality traits. More advanced stage testing involves multi-location trials over several years so that new breeding lines are tested in different weather conditions and soil types. During selection, the poor performing plants are discarded and the ‘good’ ones are promoted for further testing (similar to a final series in sports). Plant breeding requires a broad range of knowledge (including genetics, physiology, cereal chemistry, agronomy, pathology and statistics) and a multi-disciplinary team effort. Collection of field data is a critical stage of variety development in a plant breeding program.