Application of Marker Assisted Backcrossing to Introgress the Submergence Tolerance QTL <i>SUB</i>1 into the Vietnam Elite Rice Variety-AS996

Abstract

The result of the study contributes to enhancing and sustaining future livelihoods and food security in Vietnam vis-a-vis climate change. An innovative strategy based on marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC) was used to transform popular rice variety AS996 into the one can tolerate submergence while maintaining its original characteristics preferred by farmers and consumers. The submergence tolerance QTL SUB 1 counts for up to 70% of the submergence tolerant and provides a marked improvement of submergence tolerance in all genetic backgrounds and environments tested so far. Parental diversity was carried out with 460 markers. Of which, 53 polymorphic markers were used for assessment on BC1F1, BC2F1 and BC3F1 generations. The best BC1F1 plant was P422 with highest recipient allele was 87.5%, while the additional chosen plants were P412, P428, P215 and P39 (81% - 84%). All these plants were used to develop BC2F1 generation. The six BC2F1 plants were used to develop BC3F1 and BC2F2 were the plants number P422-11 and P422-14 having 93.75% recipient alleles and P422-12, P422-3, P39-17, P39-25 having 92.25% recipient alleles. Total of 445 BC3F1 plants were confirmed the introgresion of SUB 1 using ART5 and SC3. After three generations of backcrossing, application of MABC resulted in the best BC3F1 individual P422-14-177 with 100% of recipient alleles based on the number of 53 markers used with only the introgression size of SUB 1 was 0.3Mb between ART5 and SC3. Phenotyping was carried out on BC3F1 and BC2F2 of the selected lines. The survival ratio of these selected lines and IR64 SUB 1 were the same. It convinced the successfully introgress SUB 1 into AS996 rice variety. The breeding line BC4F1 having 100% genetic background of donor variety is ready for develop new submergence tolerant rice variety ASS996- SUB 1 to cope with climate change.