News Plants

Hybrid rice engineered with CRISPR can clone its seeds

The research raises hopes of making bigger crop yields more affordable

scientists with hybrid rice plants

CLONING MILESTONE  The gene-editing tool CRISPR can be used to make hybrid rice plants that can clone their seeds, Imtiyaz Khanday (left), Venkatesan Sundaresan (right) and colleagues report in a new study.

Karin Higgins/UC Davis

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

After more than 20 years of theorizing about it, scientists have tweaked a hybrid variety of rice so that some of the plants produce cloned seeds.