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These genetic resources have proven valuable to the USA because they have been a source of novel traits and genes that have increased the productivity and the value of the USA rice crop. Here are some examples of how they have been used in public breeding programs.
The rice variety, Jojutla, grown in Mexico was found to have excellent parboiling quality. Parboiled rice is what is most commonly used in large restaurant chains but can also be found in the local grocery store.
To produce parboiled rice, the harvested paddy rice is cooked with the husk still on the grain. Once the grain is milled, it has a nice golden color because of having been cooked with the husk on. The reason why parboiled rice is desired by the restaurant and canned soup business is because it has uniform cooking quality and maintains its integrity and grain shape after cooking (i.e. does not get mushy).
The USA parboiling industry desired to have this superior parboiling quality in varieties that were grown in the USA. The variety Jojutla was intercrossed with several US varieties in the 1960’s and, after many years of testing for processing quality, the variety Newrex was released in 1980 that was used for many years by the US parboiling industry.
