Male Sterility Induced by Low Temperature at the Booting Stage in Rice

Abstract

Male sterility induced by low temperature at the reproductive stage is a critical factor for rice production in cool climates. This review summarizes the threshold temperature for inducing male sterility, a methodology for quantification of cold damage, and physiological and molecular mechanism inducing sterility especially focusing on genotypic variations. Recent advance of the analysis of Quantitative Trait Locus (QTL) revealed several candidate regions on the chromosome, and pyramiding genes coding cold tolerance into a cultivar has been successfully conducted, resulting in improvement of cold tolerance. The future perspective of research of cold damage will be discussed.