Thousands of years ago, farmers in West Africa took a wild ancestor of rice and turned it into a crop of their own. But it was difficult to harvest and, over time, globally dominant Asian rice pushed it aside. Yet African rice survived in some of the region's harshest growing conditions, coping with drought, deep water, poor soil, pests and punishing heat. Now, researchers in China may have found a way to make its hard-won traits easier for breeders to harness.
Put the two plants side by side and the untrained eye would struggle to tell them apart.
