Moderate leaf rolling can maintain leaf erectness, improve light transmittance in the population, and improve light energy utilization, thereby increasing rice yield.  This study used ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) to treat Yunjing 17 (YJ17) and obtained a semi-rolled leaf mutant that was named semi-rolled leaf 3 (srl3).  We found that the rolled-leaf phenotype was due to the aberrant development of bulliform cells and the loss of sclerenchymatous cells.  In addition, the shoot and root length of srl3 seedlings differed from the wild type.  The srl3 mutant had significantly lower plant height and seed-setting rate but notably greater tiller number, panicle length, and primary branch number per panicle than the wild type.   Genetic analysis showed that a single recessive nuclear gene defined the srl3 mutant, and it was precisely located in a 144-kb region between two insertion-deletion (InDel) markers, M8 and M19, on chromosome 2.  In this region, no leaf-rolling-related genes have been reported previously.  Thus, the study indicated that SRL3 is a novel leaf-rolling-related gene, and the results laid the foundation for the cloning and functional analysis of the SRL3 gene.

China’s food supply and demand have significant implications for both China’s own national food security and that of the world.  This study reviews China’s food security prospects and their implications, focusing on international trade in the coming decade.  The results show that China’s policies for ensuring food security will be enhanced and China will move to sustainable agriculture.  Most studies anticipate that China will increase its food and feed imports in the coming decade.  China’s overall food self-sufficiency is likely to fall from 94.5% in 2015 to around 91% by 2025.  The greatest increases in imports are likely to be soybean, maize, sugar, and dairy products.  However, within the production capacity of the major exporting countries and of many food-importing developing countries, China’s additional imports of 3 to 5% of its total food consumption in the coming decade are unlikely to threaten global food security.  Indeed, the projected imports of feed and several foods could provide opportunities for many exporting countries to expand their production and save global resources.