Tagging and harvesting of developing rice spikelets to demarcate grain developmental stages

PremiseIn rice, grain is the major sink for nutrient storage and is a rich source of carbohydrates, seed storage proteins, lipids, minerals, and vitamins, making it a principal food source for over half of the worlds population. Grain development in rice generally spans over a month and has been divided into five stages, S1-S5, depending upon various morphological and physiological changes occurring in the developing seed. To completely understand the process, rice grain development needs to be examined at each stage. However, there are no detailed protocols available to demarcate grain developmental stages. Methods and ResultsThis protocol describes how to tag and harvest the developing rice spikelets. The process starts with anthesis and continues till seed maturation, demarcating the five stages of rice grain development. Seeds are collected, labelled, and stored for use in molecular experiments. Using this protocol, we were able to identify and distinguish different seed developmental stages as observed by histochemical screening. ConclusionThis is an easy, efficient, and cost-effective method. This protocol ensures the collection of the entire panel of rice seed developmental stages. The stored tissue can later be used for various molecular biology based experiments.