Marker assisted selection for the improvement of Sarjoo-52 for drought tolerance by introgression of MQTL1.1 from the source Nagina–22

Literatures have reported that a lot of drought related genes were cloned and individual gene showed positive effects under controlled stress experiments, but were not much effective in the field. Although, the progresses by conventional breeding approaches were achievable as some drought varieties have been released to the farmers in the recent years but this is not adequate to cope up with the future demand of high yield for rice, as drought seems to spread to more regions and seasons. Therefore, marker assisted selection came into lime light for accelerating and giving pace to plant breeding.From the cross (Sarjoo- 52× Nagina- 22) × Sarjoo- 52, plants were selected on the basis of presence of gene MQTL_1.1responsible for the drought tolerance. These lines have been subjected to further breeding and trial tests. Agronomic performances and physiological behavior of these lines are also under track. The results showed that the variety Sarjoo 52 could be efficiently converted to a drought tolerant variety in a backcross generation followed by selfing and selection, involving a time of two to three years. Polymorphic markers for foreground and background selection were identified for the high yielding variety to develop a wider range of drought tolerant variety to meet the needs of farmers in the drought-prone regions. This approach demonstrates the effective use of marker assisted selection for a major QTL in a molecular breeding program.