X-Ray Scanning May Increase Rice Yield, Study

Rice plants were the patients in a novel use of CT scanners to increase rice yield.

AsianScientist (Apr. 2011) – Most people experience X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanners when they are evaluated for a suspected tumor or blood clot. But in the lab of Dr. Quin Liu in Wuhan, China, rice plants were the patients in a novel use of CT scanners as part of an agriculture study to increase rice yield.

Into the CT scanner on a conveyor belt went little potted rice plants in an automated facility that could process 4,320 rice plants a day.

The non-invasive CT energy analyzed tissues and matched their traits against a computer program to aid rice breeders in selecting plants with the best rice tillers. Tillers are specialized grain-bearing shoots of the plant that determine grain yield, and are therefore crucial to crop success.

Given that an estimated 3 billion people around the globe depend on one of the many species of rice for survival, demand pressure is high on rice breeders to maximize yield.

Sophisticated, large-scale facilities help in rice growing, except for tillering – which is still done by hand. Hence, human error may undermine the success or failure of a crop.

“Automating tillering by CT provided higher throughput, higher measurement accuracy and lower cost than other technologies previously used to measure the tillers on rice plants,” Dr. Liu explains.

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Source: American Institute of Physics.
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