When counting the sources of methane, do not forget to add rice cultivation in the list. Researchers have been making efforts to greatly reduce the impact of agriculture on the climate. They have developed a new type of genetically modified rice that has DNA from barley and emits just 1% methane.

Researchers have affirmed that microbes in wetlands produce majority of the world’s methane. Roots of the rice plant releases organic compounds that eventually die and later decay and microbes later turn them into methane.

In the new study, the researchers came up with a way to increase the growth and also bring down methane production. A research team being led by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences used a gene from barley to come up with a genetically modified rice plant.

Addition of barley gene led the rice plant to put in more energy into above-ground growth. The researchers carried out trails in many areas of China having different climate. It was found that the genetically modified plant produced substantially less methane, 90 to 99% less, depending on growth.

The researchers have not only tracked rice plant growth, but also the activity of different genes of the plant. The researchers found that the genetically modified plants had stronger flower clusters, which produced more seeds. Starch content of those grains of rice was around 10% higher.

The researchers said that methane-producing microbes living on the plants’ roots declined by 50% and even more.