Location: Delta Water Management Research
Project Number: 6024-13000-004-003-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: May 1, 2022
End Date: Apr 30, 2023
Objective:
1. Measure seasonal CH4 emissions of commonly grown hybrid and pureline rice selections in the Mid-South.
2. Characterize microbial composition in the rhizosphere and plant structures of different rice cultivars managed under flooded and non-flooded conditions.
3. Discover microorganisms responsible in the reduction and elevation of CH4 emissions flooded and non-flooded rice systems.
Approach:
Recently, emerging studies that focus on understanding the complex effects between rice plants and microbes during flooded and non-flooded soil conditions are gaining more attention because of its feedbacks on CH4 emissions in paddy rice. Recent studies showed some rice cultivar effects on microbes with methanogenesis-related functions mitigating cropping practices for rice and aid the development of breeding program that reduces CH4 emissions from rice cultivation. Mitigating CH4 emissions through changes in the plant-soil-microbiome associations can offer cost-effective approaches to cut CH4 emissions from rice cultivation and bring the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere to the reduced levels. A new knowledge and/or discovery of microbiome that are direct reduction of CH4 emissions in rice under flooded and non-flooded field is extremely important in the development of effective mitigating rice cropping practices and in enhancing farmer’s C credit for carbon trading in the agricultural sector. This study will investigate the influence of microbiome association on CH4 emissions and grain yield. High emitting hybrid rice will be grown under continuously flooded irrigation. Methane emissions and grain yields from rice hybrids with and without microbial inoculant treatment will be compared. Also, different microbial communities will be characterized and identified in the four rice cultivar treatments managed under conventional and furrow irrigated rice systems.
