分子育种计划利用DNA标记技术来帮助将有价值的性状有效和有效地整合到改良的水稻品种中。在品种开发中重要的许多特征可能难以衡量或对环境敏感，这使得在育种计划方面难以取得进展。DNA标记技术通过使用植物中的少量种子或叶组织来执行易于解释的实验室测试，以表明具有相关特征的可能性，从而有助于克服这些局限性。由于很难将众多重要特征同时整合到品种中，因此标记辅助育种为遗传学家提供了一套通用的工具，可以增强和验证传统的选择技术。
The molecular breeding program utilizes DNA marker technology to aid the efficient and effective incorporation of valuable traits into improved rice cultivars. Many traits important in the development of cultivars can be difficult to measure or are environmentally sensitive, which makes it difficult to make progress in breeding programs. DNA marker technology aids in overcoming these limitations by using a small amount of seed or leaf tissue from a plant to perform an easily interpreted laboratory test for indicating the likelihood of having the trait of interest. Because it is difficult to combine numerous important traits simultaneously into cultivars, marker-assisted breeding gives geneticists a versatile set of tools that can augment, as well as verify, traditional selection techniques.