Rapid and high-precision marker assisted backcrossing to introgress the SUB1 QTL into BR11, the rainfed lowland rice mega variety of Bangladesh
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abstract
Flooding is one of the major hazards of rice production for the rainfed lowland rice ecosystem, and tolerant cultivars are urgently needed to help protect farmers from submergence damage. A quick and efficient strategy was implemented to introgress SUB1, a major QTL for submergence tolerance, into a rainfed lowland mega variety BR11 of Bangladesh by only two backcrosses and one selfing generation. In marker-assisted backcrossing (MABC), one tightly-linked simple sequence repeat (SSR) and two gene-based markers, four flanking SSR and 116 background SSR markers were used for foreground, recombinant and background selection, respectively, in backcrosses between a SUB1 donor IR40931-33-1-3-2 and BR11. BR11-Sub1, identified in a BC2F2 plant, possessed BR11 type SSR alleles on all fragments analyzed except the SUB1 QTL. The introgression size in BR11-Sub1 was 800 Kb indicating approximately 99.8% identity to BR11. BR11-Sub1 along with other introgression lines showed submergence tolerance similar to the tolerant parent. Yield, yield-component parameters and grain physico-chemical properties showed successful recovery of the BR11 traits in BR11-Sub1, with yield potential ranging from 5.2 to 5.6 t/ha, not significantly different from the recurrent parent mega variety BR11. Producing a large number (~1000) of backcross F1 plants was considered essential to achieve recombination on both sides of the gene, limiting linkage drag with only two backcrosses. A large number of background markers ensured proper recovery of the recurrent parent genome in the BC2F2 generation. The study demonstrates a rapid and highly precise strategy to introgress a major QTL by BC2F2 generation into a modern rice variety using an unadapted donor. The variety can replace BR11 on more than 2 million of ha in Bangladesh and provide major increases in rice production. 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
