Rishav Kumar, P.K. Singh, Bishun Deo Prasad, Satyendra,Anand Kumar and Mankesh Kumar
Abstract
Rice is the second major crop in the world in terms of area and production but due to change in environmentalconditions, it is being affected by drought. Numerous rice varieties have been developed throughconventional breeding method which takes a several years for its release and the varieties released Thoughthis method may not be adequate to meet the future demand of growing populations. With the advancementof marker assisted breeding (MAB) along with the discovery of new QTLs, acted as a milestone in markerassisted introgression for development and release of variety. In the present research work emphasis hasbeen given on introgression of QTL qDTY1.1 since it has been reported by researchers that it plays crucialrole in drought tolerance which is located near to sd-1 gene. So, in the present investment, introgression ofqDTY1.1 has been carried out from Nagina-22 in the background of local rice cultivar Sita. SSR markerRM431 was used for foreground selection while recombinant selection was carried out through RM3825and RM12091. Background selection was performed with 49 polymorphic SSR markers. Maximum recoveryobtained for BC2F1 line was 79.59%. All positive BC2F1 lines developed were subjected to further breedingand field trial. The results showed that Sita could be efficiently converted into a drought tolerant varietythrough backcross followed by selfing and selection, involving a time of two to three years. This approachdemonstrates the effective use of marker assisted backcross breeding for introgression of qDTY1.1 in amolecular breeding programme.