Conventional and molecular breeding for development of climate resilient rice varieties

Sudhir Kumar1 & Mahesh Rao2

1. Scientist, ICAR RC for NEH Region Manipur Centre, Imphal-795004
2. Scientist, NRC Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi- 110012

Climate changing is a burning topic of today and it has great impact on agriculture and allied sector.
Rice is the staple food crop of the half of the world population. South East Asia constitutes about 37%
of total rice area and larger proportion under rainfed condition. Under changing climatic condition
under rainfed environment has negatively affected the rice production and that is a serious concern for
food security. Abiotic stresses such as drought, cold, heat, flood, salinity, metal toxicity, and mineral
deficiency has greatly affected the rice production under changing climate condition of the world and
it has forced the scientific community to develop novel technology that will addressed the food
security. Climate change has lead to severe drought like situation in the large plant of the globe.
Genetic improvement for drought has been addressed by traditional plant breeding and molecular
approaches. Farmers have been traditionally been selecting those plants that survived drought events
for centuries, and it could provide a genetic stock or for deciphering of major QTLs and it may be
incorporated in mega varieties of different rice growing ecosystem (Mackill et al. 1996). Drought is a
complex trait and therefore there is need to develop high throughput screening technology for a
serious of drought affecting traits under suitable environment. Salinity, a serious problem affecting
one third of all the irrigated land in the world (Mass and Hoffman, 1977), impairs normal growth and
limits the realization of yield potential of modern cultivars. Development of rice varieties having inbuilt salt tolerance is most economical and viable strategies in enhancing the yield potential of rice
under salt stress condition. Through conventional breeding several rice varieties has been release such
as Pokkali,Vytilla 1, Vytilla 2, Vytilla 3, Vytilla 4, SR 26 B, CSR 1, CSR 2, CSR 3, CSR 27, CSR 13,
Panvel 1, Panvel 2, Panvel 3, which are under the cultivation . Marker assisted selection can assist in
identifying gene(s)/QTL(s) and it may be introduced in to high yielding mega varieties of different

ecosystem. Zhong-Hai Ren et al. (2005) have introduced a major quantitative trait locus, SKC1 for
salt tolerance which encodes a sodium transporter. A major QTL, SALTOL 1 was discovered from as
landrace FR13A and it has been introgressed in a number of mega varieties of south East Asia and
presently in cultivation. Flooding is a major devastating stress in lowland rice growing area and it
leads to significant yield reduction. Flooding during different growth stages such as, germination,
vegetative growth and reproductive stages has remarkably differed in respect of crop damage.
Flooding at seed germination will create anaerobic condition and it will hamper seed germination.
Very little progress has been made in mapping and introducing QTLs for anaerobic germination. In
recent past a landmark achievement has been made by identifying and mapping a major QTL, SUB-1,
and it has been incorporated in mega varieties of low land rice growing area.
References:
Mackill , D.J., Coffman, W.R. and Garrity, D.P. (1996). Rainfed Lowland Rice Improvement.
International Rice Research Institute, Manila, Philippines.
Mass, E.V. and Hoffman, G.J. (1977). Crop salt tolerance current assessment. J. Irrig. And Drainage
Div., ASCE, 103 : 115-134.
Zhong-Hai Ren, Ji-Ping Gao, Le-Gong Li, Xiu-Ling Cai, Wei Huang, Dai-Yin Chao, Mei- Zhen Zhu,
Zong-Yang Wang, Sheng Luan and Hong-Xuan Lin. (2005). A rice quantitative trait locus for salt
tolerance encodes a sodium transporter. Nature. Genetics 37: 1141 1146.