Flood and drought tolerance in rice: Opposite but may coexist

Flood and drought are the two most prevalent abiotic stresses causing major yield reduction globally. In the last decade, molecular mechanisms of flood tolerance in rice have been revealed with successful release of flash flood-tolerant varieties to farmers. However, despite extensive research, the breakthrough of drought tolerance is still to come. In this review, we have examined the distribution and population types of drought- and flood-tolerant rice accessions, synthesized recent progresses of flood and drought tolerance research, and proposed a hypothesis that the molecular mechanisms of both drought and flood tolerance may be regulated by cross-talked pathways and coexist in aus subpopulation. We conclude that it is the time to mine the key regulator(s) of drought tolerance through de novo assembly of drought-tolerant aus landrace(s) with other molecular approaches and develop drought-tolerant rice using genome manipulation weaponry.