Narrator:        This is Science Today. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has honored University of California scientists for their landmark research that lead to the development of flood-tolerant rice. Julia Bailey-Serres, a rice geneticist at the University of California, Riverside and lead recipient of the 2008 USDA National Research Initiative Discovery Award, says such ‘waterproof' rice can benefit farmers in flood-prone areas worldwide. 

Bailey-Serres:            Rice is grown in flood-prone regions in about twenty percent of the rice growing areas in the world and so having the ability to grow a line that's submergence-tolerant would enable rice farmers to ensure that they will have a yield from their crop.

Narrator:        Bailey-Serres's lab collaborated with that of Dr. Pamela Ronald at UC Davis.

Bailey-Serres: Their work was instrumental in identifying the gene region that contains the genes that confer submergence tolerance.

Narrator:        For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.