Figure 3: Association of Nced alleles with ABA levels and lateral roots.

(a) Box plot of ABA levels of 17 C-type and 20 T-type upland varieties. The vertical axis indicates the ABA contents. The ABA level of T-type upland rice is significantly higher than that of C-type upland rice (t-test, P=0.033). (b) The ABA levels of 12 C-type and 11 T-type families in the F7 RIL population. T-type families have significantly higher ABA levels (t-test, P=0.016). (c) Comparison of the lateral root densities of 9 C-type and 8 T-type upland varieties showing that T-type upland varieties have denser lateral roots than C-type varieties (t-test, P=0.009). (d) Comparison of the lateral root densities between the 12 C-type and 11 T-type families in the RIL population showing that T-type families have denser lateral roots (t-test, P=0.035). (e,f) Root system observations under stereoscope of the C-type upland variety IRAT 12 and the T-type upland variety Honghangu, and the C-type family DT51 and T-type family DT81 from the RIL, respectively. For box plots, the bottom, top and middle bands of the boxes indicate the 25th, 75th and 50th percentiles, respectively. Whiskers extend to the most extreme data points no more than 1 interquartile in range from the box. The empty circles are the extreme values.