Thousands of farmers in China have started to grow a remarkable new version of rice, one that realizes an old scientific dream. It's a perennial form of the grain, which doesn't have to be planted anew each season, but emerges year after year from long-lived roots in the soil just as many wild grasses do.
Researchers at Yunnan University in Kunming, China, worked for more than two decades to create this rice, and have now revealed details of their success in the journal Nature Sustainability. Their perennial rice, they report, requires much less labor, dramatically reducing a farmer's costs while producing about the same amount of grain. Its long-lived roots may deliver big environmental benefits, too, although scientists need more data to confirm that.
