Along with a change in dietary habits of Japanese people and increase in export of agricultural products, consumers demands on crop variety are diversified; for example varieties which are suitable for food service industry use, have added value, or can be produced at low cost. Rapid development of new varieties is required to meet aforementioned various demands on excellent varieties with high industrial competitiveness. The division provides smart breeding platform with automated selection utilizing AI technology and breeding big data such as genomic information.
Division of Smart Breeding Research consists of 2 groups: Custom Breeding Group and Breeding Big Data Management and Utilization Group. Custom Breeding Group is responsible for development of rice varieties with good eating quality and high-yielding suitable for food industry in collaboration with public and private sectors through tailor-made breeding with rapid generation advancement, development of promising breeding population based on genomic information and so on. Breeding Big Data Management and Utilization Group is responsible for acceleration and automation of crop breeding by high-throughput evaluation and centralized use platform of breeding data. Smart breeding technology developed for rice will be rapidly expanded to other field crops and vegetables.
