Abstract
The elite Indian rice variety, Naveen is highly susceptible to major biotic and abiotic stresses such as blast, bacterial blight (BB), gall midge (GM) and drought which limit its productivity in rainfed areas. In the present study, a combined approach of marker-assisted forward (MAFB) and back cross (MABC) breeding was followed to introgress three major genes, viz., Pi9 for blast, Xa21 for bacterial blight (BB), and Gm8 for gall midge (GM) and three major QTLs, viz., qDTY1.1, qDTY2.2 and qDTY4.1 conferring increased yield under drought in the background of Naveen. At each stage of advancement, gene-based/linked markers were used for the foreground selection of biotic and abiotic stress tolerant genes/QTLs. Intensive phenotype-based selections were performed in the field for identification of lines with high level of resistance against blast, BB, GM and drought tolerance without yield penalty under non-stress situation. A set of 8 MAFB lines and 12 MABC lines with 3 to 6 genes/QTLs and possessing resistance/tolerance against biotic stresses and reproductive stage drought stress with better yield performance compared to Naveen were developed. Lines developed through combined MAFB and MABC performed better than lines developed only through MAFB. This study exemplifies the utility of the combined approach of marker-assisted forward and backcrosses breeding for targeted improvement of multiple biotic and abiotic stress resistance in the background of popular mega varieties.
Highlights
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the principal food crop of the world
The marker-assisted forward breeding approach was followed in the present study to transfer six genes/QTLs to complement the blast, bacterial blight (BB), gall midge (GM) resistance and drought tolerance in elite rice variety Naveen
amylose content (AC) is ranged from 20 to 25% in Marker-Assisted Forward Breeding (MAFB) lines and 17.7 to 25.8% in marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABC) lines whereas in Naveen it was recorded as 22%. These results indicate that drought has some effect on grain quality characteristics
Summary
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the principal food crop of the world. More than one-third of the world’s population and half of India’s population relied on rice as their primary calorie intake. Marker-assisted improvement of Naveen rice variety of India grant This work has been undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Rice (RICE) and ICAR-IRRI collaborative research project. IRRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium
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