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Concept
Oryza sativa
Summary
Oryza sativa, commonly known as rice, is the plant species most commonly referred to in English as rice. It is the type of farmed rice whose cultivars are most common globally, and was first domesticated in the Yangtze River basin in China 13,500 to 8,200 years ago.
Oryza sativa belongs to the genus Oryza of the grass family Poaceae. With a genome consisting of 430 Mbp across 12 chromosomes, it is renowned for being easy to genetically modify and is a model organism for the botany of cereals.
The species has a erect and stout or slender stalk stem that grows between 80−120 centimetres tall, it has a smooth surface. The leaf is lanceolate 15−30 cm long and grows from a ligule between 10−20 millimetres long.
History of rice cultivation
Oryza sativa contains two major subspecies: the sticky, short-grained japonica or sinica variety, and the nonsticky, long-grained rice variety. Japonica was domesticated in the Yangtze Valley 9–6,000 years ago, and its varieties can be cultivated in dry fields (it is cultivated mainly submerged in Japan), in temperate East Asia, upland areas of Southeast Asia, and high elevations in South Asia, while indica was domesticated around the Ganges 8,500-4,500 years ago, and its varieties are mainly lowland rices, grown mostly submerged, throughout tropical Asia. Rice occurs in a variety of colors, including white, brown, black, purple, and red rices. Black rice (also known as purple rice) is a range of rice types, some of which are glutinous rice. Varieties include Indonesian black rice and Thai jasmine black rice.
A third subspecies, which is broad-grained and thrives under tropical conditions, was identified based on morphology and initially called javanica, but is now known as tropical japonica. Examples of this variety include the medium-grain 'Tinawon' and 'Unoy' cultivars, which are grown in the high-elevation rice terraces of the Cordillera Mountains of northern Luzon, Philippines.
Glaszmann (1987) used isozymes to sort O. sativa into six groups: japonica, aromatic, indica, aus, rayada, and ashina.
Official source
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