Developing Crop Varieties with Genome Plasticity

Crop resilience to changing climatic conditions involving genome plasticity could be harnessed by the way of pooling or stacking genes governing abiotic and biotic stress tolerances. Favorable QTLs and genes pooled by innovative molecular breeding method that involves screening of 16 BC1F2 populations derived from 16 donor parents in recipient parent i.e. Weed Tolerant Rice 1(WTR1) over three consecutive rounds to major abiotic stress conditions. 576 ILs out of a total of 2232 ILs with multiple abiotic stress tolerance by three rounds of screening under drought, salinity and submergence were genotyped by sequence (tGBS) for detecting the QTLs/Genes governing them. We also developed separately multiple abiotic stress tolerant ILs especially for suitable for rainfed lowlands for direct sown conditions. Recipient parent (WTR1 released as BRRIdhan69) was used in the cross for combining weed competitiveness, submergence (Sub1) and anaerobic germination (AG1) tolerance genes with the donor parent (Haoannong) for its superior yield performance, higher protein (11.2%) and Sub-1 gene. Their BC1F2 bulk population was screened for 3 consecutive rounds under different nutrient levels of NPK fertilizers and developed 230 NUE ILs with superior yield advantages over the checks. These were screened for Sub-1 (RM464) and AG-1 genes (RM24141, RM24161) with tightly linked SSR molecular markers and also further validated them by testing the positive ILs for controlled submergence and anaerobic germination tolerances. We identified 58 NUE ILs with low input, submergence and anaerobic germination tolerances into single IL background. These newly developed NUE ILs will be suitable for rainfed lowlands of Bangladesh and India especially for direct seeding under wet and dry bed conditions. Further these promising ILs are being shared with NARES for their adaption under target environments in Asia.