'Plant Breeding: Sustaining the Future' Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 DEVELOPING A MORE SUSTAINABLE UPLAND RICE: PERENNIAL UPLAND RICE E.J. SACKS, J.P. ROXAS, M.T. STA CRUZ International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

Perennial upland rice is a new crop being developed at IRRI.  Under upland conditions, current cultivars of rice (Oryza sativa) typically produce only one crop before dying.  Our goal is to help subsistence upland (dryland) farmers in Southeast Asia protect their land and water resources from soil erosion while providing a preferred food.  To develop perennial cultivars, we have been introgressing genes from wild perennial relatives.  O. sativa/O. rufipogon crosses have been especially promising because the progeny are generally fertile, many are strongly perennial, and some are highly stoloniferous.  Prospects for O. sativa/O. longistaminata crosses have been limited by low fertility, though some partly fertile, rhizomatous individuals have been recovered.  With further work, perennial upland rice can become a real option for farmers.