Growth and Yield Components of African Rice.

Throughout the world, there are only two rice species which are cultivated: Oryza sativa, or Asian rice, and Oryza glaberrima, or African rice. The two strains of Asian rice, japonica and indica, are thought be domesticated independently, possibly in China. In contrast, African rice, O. glaberrima, is believed to have been domesticated by people living in the floodplains of the Niger River. Currently, O. glaberrima is being replaced in West Africa by O. sativa because of the latter’s higher yields. However, O. glaberrima is hardier than its Asian counterpart and efforts are now being undertaken to cross the two species. The new rice has been referred to as “New Rice for Africa (NERICA). In this report, we compare growth response of O. glaberrima, CG14 with the popular indica cultivar, IR29, and the japonica cultivar, M202. Plants were grown in a greenhouse in sand and irrigated with Yoshida solution. Yield components including grain weight per plant, grain weight per panicle, spikelet number per panicle, and tiller number per plant of all cultivars were recorded and compared. Our findings will be reported therein.