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RESISTANCE CHARACTERIZATION OF WILD RELATIVES OF RICE IN RESPONSE TO BACTERIAL BLIGHT

SYED MEHAR ALI SHAH¹, HIDAYAT-UR-RAHMAN¹, FIDA MUHAMMAD ABASSI², MUHAMMAD AFZAL AKHTAR³, ABDUL RAFI⁴ AND IJAZ AHMAD KHAN⁵

Abstract: Bacterial blight (BB) of rice caused by Xanthomonas oryzae  pv. oryzae is becoming  a potential threat to rice crop in many regions of the world. In order  to identify resistant sources to virulent isolates of bacterial blight, an experiment comprising 14 species of wild rice (Oryza sp.) and three widely used cultivated varieties of  rice in Pakistan was conducted in the greenhouse of National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad during 2005. Adult plants were inoculated with virulent isolates of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae prevailing in NWFP, Pakistan i.e., Xo-103, Xo-107, Xo-139, Xo-143, Xo-304, Xo-351 and MNR-4. Of all the wild relatives of rice, O. nivara, O. longistaminata and O. grandiglumis showed resistance to all isolates. O. nivara even didn’t show any lesion against any isolate. Remaining wild species showed differential response to the isolates used in the study. These species were resistant to one or few isolates but expressed susceptibility to others. Bas-385, IR-6 and KSK-282, the cultivated varieties of Pakistan used in study were found susceptible to most of the isolates. The use of resistant wild species O. nivara, O. longistaminata and O. grandiglumis  is, therefore, recommended in rice breeding programs for transfer of bacterial blight resistant genes to cultivated varieties.

¹Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar,

²Plant Biotechnology Program, Institute of Agriculture Biotechnology and Genetic Resources, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan

³Crop Diseases Research programme, Institute of Plant and Environmental Protection, National Agricultural Research Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan

⁴Department of Plant Pathology, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan

⁵Department of Weed Science, NWFP Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan.