Requirements

To grow any rice crop, the requirements for sunlight, soil fertility, and water remain the same. All rice crops require:

• • fertile soil.

  • adequate irrigation water and drainage.

  • sufficient sunlight for high seed yield.

  • management of insects and soil-borne diseases.

• Fields for CMS line multiplication or hybrid seed production have one more important requirement. Seed production plots must be well separated, or isolated, from other ricefields to ensure genetic purity of the seed.

• What we mean by protecting genetic purity is that the seed parent (or A line) is only pollinated by the male parent chosen as the B line or the R line.

• Pollen from different rice cultivars near seed production plots can contaminate the seed parent and lower the quality of the hybrid seed.

• Seed production crops can be isolated from other rice crops by:

• • distance from other ricefields.

  • differences in time of flowering.

  • natural or artificial barriers.