Developing Climate-Resilient, Direct-Seeded, Adapted Multiple-Stress-Tolerant Rice Applying Genomics-Assisted Breeding

Nitika Sandhu; Shailesh Yadav; Margaret Catolos; Ma Teresa Sta Cruz; Arvind Kumar

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.637488

Developing Climate-Resilient, Direct-Seeded, Adapted Multiple-Stress-Tolerant Rice Applying Genomics-Assisted Breeding

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Apr 15:12:637488. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.637488. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Nitika Sandhu^{1

2}, Shailesh Yadav¹, Margaret Catolos¹, Ma Teresa Sta Cruz¹, Arvind Kumar^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Rice Breeding Platform, International Rice Research Institute, Metro Manila, Philippines.
² School of Agricultural Biotechnology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India.
³ International Rice Research Institute South Asia Regional Centre, Varanasi, India.

Abstract

There is an urgent need to breed dry direct-seeded adapted rice varieties in order to address the emerging scenario of water-labor shortage. The aim of this study was to develop high-yielding, direct-seeded adapted varieties utilizing biparental to multiparental crosses involving as many as six different parents in conventional breeding programs and 12 parents in genomics-assisted breeding programs. The rigorous single plant selections were followed from the F₂ generation onwards utilizing phenotypic selection and quantitative trait locus (QTL)/gene-based/linked markers for tracking the presence of desirable alleles of targeted QTL/genes. In conventional breeding, multiparent lines had significantly higher yields (2,072-6,569 kg ha^-1) than the biparental lines (1,493-6,326 kg ha^-1). GAB lines derived from multiparent crosses had significantly higher (3,293-6,719 kg ha^-1) yields than the multiparent lines from conventional breeding (2,072-6,569 kg ha^-1). Eleven promising lines from genomics-assisted breeding carrying 7-11 QTL/genes and eight lines from conventional breeding with grain-yield improvement from 727 to 1,705 kg ha^-1 and 68 to 902 kg ha^-1, respectively, over the best check were selected. The developed lines may be released as varieties/parental lines to develop better rice varieties for direct-seeded situations or as novel breeding material to study genetic interactions.

Keywords: Oryza sativa; QTL/genes; direct seeded; genomics; multiparent; pyramiding.