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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stuttgart, Arkansas » Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #400457
Research Project: Gene Discovery and Crop Design for Current and New Rice Management Practices and Market Opportunities

Location: Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center

Title: Improvement and characterization of medium grain rice germplasm for US breeders and growers

Author
item Jia, Yulin
item Jia, Melissa
item Dunlap, Heather
item Lin, Michael

Submitted to: Rice Technical Working Group Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/11/2023
Publication Date: 1/30/2024
Citation: Jia, Y., Jia, M.H., Dunlap, H.N., Lin, M.J. 2024. Improvement and characterization of medium grain rice germplasm for US breeders and growers. Rice Technical Working Group Meeting Proceedings, Hot Springs, Arkansas, February 20-23, 2024. p66.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Medium-grain rice like Calrose has been demanded by consumers and most premium medium grain rice is grown in California, USA. As a part of base broadening effort, we developed a medium grain rice germplasm Eclipse with effective blast resistance genes that can be grown in the southern USA and California. Eclipse was developed by crossing a premium long grain blast resistant rice variety Katy with a medium grain rice variety M-202 with Calrose quality and resistant F2 progeny was backcrossed into M202 for another 5 generations. A BC5 line #13 (renamed #13 as Eclipse recommended by Dr. McClung) was selfed to produce pure seeds for evaluation of agronomic traits using replicated field experiments in Arkansas and in Uniform Regional Rice Nursery for 2 years. Resistance to rice blast was verified by the use of gene specific markers for blast resistance genes Pi-ta and Ptr and results were verified with 10 differential blast races under greenhouse conditions and natural infections under field conditions in Louisiana and Puerto Rico. Grain quality is highly similar to M-202 as determined by genetic markers for amylose, aroma, and the Alk gene. Eclipse is a semidwarf glabrous type of medium grain rice has a low amylose content can be directly used by rice growers for premium medium grain rice production and development of new rice varieties.