Editorial
Snowfall reduced to historic lows, water tables lowering and sea water rising towards inland areas. Along with rising temperatures and increasingly stressful climatic conditions, the rice plants intended for agriculture they are reducing their production and cast doubt on the rice sector's production capacity for the future.
Italy is the main rice producer in Europe, accounting for approximately 50% of the harvest and producing approximately 1,5 million tons annually. The Italian varieties, appreciated throughout the world, suffer from theincrease in the salinity curve of the water In particular areas like the Po Valley, where over 95% of national production is concentrated, excess salt in the soil can cause plant death or, more often, a reduction in productivity. This phenomenon is challenging the entire production chain, spurring research into food safety.
To combat the effects of global warming, a study by Departmental Faculty of Sciences and Technologies for Sustainable Development and One Health of theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma identifies them molecular attributes of resistance to increased salinity of some of the main varieties of Italian rice and studies the characteristics that a rice plant must have to continue to grow and produce even in adverse climatic conditions.
The research focused on 4 variety Currently grown in Italy, two are more salt-tolerant, Baldo and Onice, and two are more salt-sensitive, Selenio and Vialone nano. By analyzing molecular traits related to phenotypic traits such as symptoms of distress and growth inhibition due to soil salinization, researchers from the Food Science and Nutrition Unit of theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma They identified the ability to produce and accumulate antioxidants as the cause of greater tolerance to salt stress, publishing the first data in the scientific journal Antioxidants and discovering that the plants best able to survive in a salt-rich environment are those able to accumulate a greater quantity of glutathione, an antioxidant present in plant cells (but also in animals, fungi, and some bacteria) capable of preventing oxidative stress and cellular aging.
The study of glutathione metabolism then allowed researchers to identify differences in the biosynthesis and control mechanisms, including epigenetics, of glutathione metabolism among different rice varieties, identifying molecular traits potentially related to the tolerance of rice varieties most resistant to soil salinization.
"The results obtained so far from our research were presented in recent days at the international congress Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species in Plants organized by the Plant Oxygen Group in Antibes Juan-les-Pins and in the next few months it will be possible to identify tolerance markers present in plants that are most resistant to soil salinization – explained the professor Vittoria Locato, teacher in the Master's Degree Courses in Food Science and Human Nutrition and in Food Science and Technology and Food Design - Once these markers have been identified, it will be possible, through various biotechnological approaches, to transfer the resilience characteristics to rice varieties which, despite being of great productive interest, are not resistant to salt stress.".
In this way the most widespread and marketed varieties today, appreciated for their production or organoleptic characteristics but not sufficiently resistant to the changed climatic and environmental conditions, will be able to maintain adequate production levels capable of satisfying the demand for rice even in the changed environmental conditions. "Thanks to the possibility of crossing different rice varieties – continues Locato – it will be possible to transfer characteristics of tolerance to environmental stress to varieties of agronomic interest, obtaining crops that are more resistant to climate change and therefore more productive and will retain the organoleptic properties that make Italian rice and risotto famous throughout the world".
