Seed Storability in Rice: Physiological Bases, Molecular Mechanisms, and Application to Breeding

Long-term storage of crop seeds is critical for germplasm resource conservation, food supply and sustainable production. As a major food, rice has a huge stock for production and consumption worldwide, while easily losing food value and seed viability during storage. Thus, understanding the physiological responses and molecular mechanisms of aging tolerance lays the foundation for improving seed storability in rice. This review illustrates the current advances in influential factors, evaluation methods, and identification indexes of seed storability. It also discusses the physiological consequences, molecular mechanisms, and methods to breed aging-tolerant rice in detail. Finally, it points out some challenges in the research of seed storability that need to be addressed in the future. This review provides a theoretical basis and research direction for revealing the mechanisms underlying seed storability and breeding aging tolerant rice.