Screening of traditional rice varieties (TRVs) for blast resistance

Abstract

Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Rice blast, caused by Magnaporthe oryzae (Anamorph = Pyricularia grisea) with high pathogen plasticity and mutation rate considered as most damaging disease in rice. Blast resistance, tended to be unreliable, with resistance often failing, or broken down, under field conditions, therefore there is always continuous search for resistant donors/lines. TRVs are considered to be source of resistance for many biotic and abiotic stresses. So in present study 30 TRVs along with resistant (Tetep) and susceptible check (HR 12) were screened for blast resistance by artificial inoculation in Uniform Blast Nursery (UBN) and screening was done by following 0-9 Standard Evaluation Scale (SES) for leaf blast. None of the TRVs shown to be highly resistant and resistant, but two TRVs viz. Baigan Munji and Adri Batta were shown moderately resistant and Tetep shown resistant reaction against blast.