Abdelbagi Ismail is a scientist at the International Rice Research Institute. He says close to 25 million hectares of rice is lost to floods in Asia and Africa every year. There are about 150 million hectares of rice worldwide.

With one seventh of the total crop lost, Abdelbagi Ismail says researchers want to find a way to make flooded rice survive for longer periods.

“Now SUB1 can protect up to two weeks, but sometimes we get floods up to 25 days. So we lose it even with SUB1. So we want to see if we can increase flooding tolerance by more than one week- additional to SUB1. So any information that comes from these studies could help us.”

The International Rice Research Institute is now directing its attention on three areas. The scientists want to help flooded rice sprouts continue to grow normally. They also want to look for other genes that do what SUB1 does. And they want to produce plants that can survive total and partial flooding in soil that never completely drains during the rainy season.

Laurentius Voesenek is with Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He is working to identify qualities that help plants deal with flooding. His work is on ethylene, a gas released by plants once they are covered with water.

“Gases produced by the plant can only very slowly escape. So if production continues it builds up and that is a very reliable signal for the plant to know ‘I’m under water. I’m in trouble. I have to do something. Switch on genes which might protect.’”