qDTY3.1, a major drought tolerant locus of APO promotes early flowering in the genetic back ground of a local cultivar improved white ponni

Abstract

Advancements in molecular genetics led to identification of genomic regions in rice associated with performance under drought conditions which enabled designing molecular breeding strategies for development of drought tolerant rice genotypes. However, physiological and molecular basis of most of these QTLs are not yet studied. In this study, a recombinant inbred population (RIL) developed between Improved White Ponni (a drought susceptible rice variety) and Apo (a drought tolerant cultivar) was genotyped using SSR markers linked to major drought tolerant QTLs. Evaluation of RILs for days to flowering and subsequent marker – trait association analysis revealed that qDTY3.1, a major drought tolerant loci was found to be associated with earliness with an R2 value of 0.66. Further analysis revealed that qDTY3.1 was found to be co-localized or located near a major heading date locus Hd6 (30.4–35.6 Mb; RM3199–RM3329) on chromosome 3. Further experiments for developing back cross progenies harboring the two loci in different combinations are in progress to dissect out the interaction between the qDTY3.1 and Hd6.

Keywords

• Rice
• Drought
• SSR Marker
• Validation