Improving rice blast resistance by stacking of two broad spectrum resistance gene Pi9 and Pi54 in cultivar CO 51 through Marker Assisted Selection

Blast disease is a highly destructive disease and causes significant yield losses in rice. To address this issue, this study was chosen and focused on stacking of the Pi9along with CO 51+Pi54, which provide broad-spectrum resistance to blast pathogen. This study demonstrated that stacking of Pi9 along with CO 51+Pi54, against blast disease. An advanced breeding line was evaluated for blast disease resistance in a natural hotspot region over two growing seasons (kharif 2021 and kharif 2022). All 36 progenies revealed genetic potential of the stacked genes and exhibiting resistance to blast disease kharif 2021 and kharif 2022. The recurrent parent, CO 51 is moderately resistant while CO 51 with Pi9+Pi54 genes displayed a blast score 0<2, indicating strong resistance. Average yield of single plant has been increased 0.28% to 35.05% in NILs of CO 51. Maximum single plant yield of 35.05 % was recorded in progeny #20x6-5-11-121 which was followed by the progeny #20x6-5-11-125 (31.65%).