Research Article
Grace Sharon Arul Selvi, Shail
Abstract
Drought is the foremost limiting factor affecting rice production especially in the critical reproductive growth phase. Several mechanisms that resist/ tolerate or avoid drought stress have been elucidated and documented in many crops. In this study, Quantitative trait loci pyramiding (QTL) pyramiding for root morphological traits and an evaluation of the effects of QTLs in combination. Four QTLs present on chromosomes 1, 2, 7 and 9 in a nearisogenic line (NIL) population derived by backcrossing 4 doubled haploid lines of IR64/Azucena cross into IR64 were used to develop pyramids. These NILs were crossed pair-wise to arrive at combinations of two-QTL and three-QTL pyramids. Among the generated QTL pyramids, qRT6-2 x qRT11-7 and qRT6-2 x qRT19-1+7 were found to have higher yields than parent IR64 under moisture stress situation. QTLs present on different chromosomes showed maximum antagonistic effects in comparison with the different QTLs present on the same chromosome. The pyramids also show a relative increase of the NILs in terms of height, number of tillers and number of panicles, however, pyramids not show an increase in the dry matter accumulation which implies that the partitioning of the biomass is directed towards the below ground parts, leading to less sturdy plants that perform averagely under moisture stress situations.