Genetic diversity for cold tolerance at seedling stage in rice (Oryza sativa L.) under Egyptian conditions

Abstract

Breeding rice for cold tolerance is one of the important ways for climate change facing, which attacks a large amount of the cultivated areas all over the world countries. This study was conducted at Sakha during two seasons 2015 and 2016 to evaluate some rice accessions belong to different rice types for the ability of cold tolerance in seedling stage at early growing season under Egyptian conditions. The 40 rice accessions used in this study were evaluated at two early dates of sowing 1st March and 1st April as a cold condition, in addition to control sowing date at 1st May. Twenty six SSR markers related to cold tolerance at seedling stage were used in order to determine the genetic diversity and polymorphism among the studied genotypes. Low temperature degree condition significantly decreased the mean values of the all studied traits for all accessions compared with the control condition. Significant differences were observed among the studied genotypes under both different growing conditions. Japonica varieties are found to be more tolerant than Indica varieties. SSR markers RM265, RM324, RM163 and RM270 showed highly polymorphism among the studied rice accessions and more over differentiate them to different groups based on their ability for cold tolerance. Giza 177, Sakha 102 and Sakha 104 out of the Egyptian rice genotypes showed a good performance at low temperature degrees condition in early growing season. The genotypes CT6749-36-7-2-M-M, Milyang 80, PSRM1-17-4B-13, Ryong Sung 25 can be used as a donor for cold tolerance in rice breeding.