Genomics-Assisted Breeding of Climate Smart Rice Varieties

‘Rice bowls’ of Asia appears to be highly vulnerable to sudden climatic changes. An innovative genomics assisted breeding strategy that enabled us to develop and nominate climate smart multiple abiotic and biotic stress tolerant materials into national yield trials in Asia will be discussed. Green Super Rice (GSR) resilience breeding involves introgression breeding and designed QTL pyramiding (DQP) efforts for developing varieties with multiple abiotic and biotic stress tolerance without compromising on grain yield and quality. GSR molecular breeding strategy involving 16 donors and their introgression into two popular adaptive lines i.e. Huanghuazhan (HHZ) and Weed Tolerant Rice 1 (WTR 1) had allowed us to identify several introgression lines with high yield potential and multiple biotic stress tolerant lines. BC₁F₂ populations derived from HHZ and WTR1 (recipient parents) and 16 donors at IRRI were screened simultaneously for three rounds for different abiotic (Drought, salinity, submergence and low fertilizer input conditions) and biotic stresses (blast, BLB, tungro) and normal irrigated condition that resulted in identification of 1333 (HHZ-ILs) + 2232 (WTR 1-ILs) trait specific introgression lines (ILs) superior over tolerant checks. Adopting this approach, +40 climate smart materials were nominated to national and multi-environment testing (MET) trials in Asia and Africa. 45 out of 191 pyramiding crosses showed promising results upon their screening under drought, salinity, submergence and low input conditions. Successful genomics- assisted breeding approach requires appropriate cross tolerance screening and selection techniques. DQP with omic tools would enable us to further enhance the grain yield and resilience of GSR.