As I was driving home from the airport today, I heard this interesting story about attempts to grow rice in Wisconsin on National Public Radio. You can listen to the story here.
A Marquette University professor is trying to grow rice in the climate of Wisconsin to see if he can get it to produce enough rice to consider growing commercially. After testing many different varieties, he found one from Russia that seems to be not only surviving but producing quite well. It shows that in the future there may be many other species that can be used to expand the range of possible crops in a different climate.
AgWeb posted a separate article this week on other research scientists are doing in Texas to reduce stress and increase rice yield. You can read that here.
