Identification of a major quantitative trait locus for bakanae disease resistance in rice

Bakanae disease incidence threat is an increasing trend in the top rice growing countries. Despite it is essential to identify the resistant genes and underlying mechanisms of bakanae disease to develop resistant varieties, there are very limited genetic studies on bakanae disease in rice. The indica rice variety Shingwang was selected as resistant donor to bakanae disease. One hundred sixty nine NILs, YR28297 (BC6F4) generated by five backcrosses of Shingwang with the genetic background of susceptible japonica variety, Ilpum were used for QTL analysis. Rice bakanae disease pathogen, CF283, was mainly used in this study and inoculation and evaluation of bakanae disease was performed with the method of the large-scale screening method developed by Kim et al. (2014). The proportion of healthy plants of Shingwang and Ilpum after inoculation was confirmed using bakanae disease pathogen, CF283. While inoculated Ilpum showed thin and yellowish-green phenotype which is typical symptom of Bakanae disease, Shingwang showed similar healthy phenotype with control plants. A major QTL for resistance against bakanae disease on chromosome 1 was identified using SSR marker, RM9, which explaining 65 % of the total phenotype variation. The major QTL designated as qBK1 and mapped to a 4.4 Mbp region between RM24 (19.30 Mb) and RM11295 (23.72 Mb). The information of qBK1 could be useful for improving rice bakanae disease resistance in marker-assisted breeding.