DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE RESILIENT RICE CULTIVARS FOR LOUISIANA

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1021401
• Project Start Date: Dec 11, 2019
• Project End Date: Jun 23, 2023
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
202 HIMES HALL
BATON ROUGE,LA 70803-0100

Performing Department
School of Plant, Environmental, and Soil Sciences

Non Technical Summary
Abiotic stresses are major constraints for sustainable crop production. The frequency and severity of abiotic constraints are predicted to increase due to the continuing process of climate change resulting in decreased food production. Due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, southern rice growing parishes in Louisiana are vulnerable to salinity stress. Reduce rainfall and saltwater intrusion contaminate the freshwater resources. Drought is another major abiotic stress that reduces average yield of crops including rice by 50% worldwide. In Mid-South and Southwest USA, hot and dry weather increases the risk of drought stress for rice production. Development of drought tolerant varieties with enhanced water use efficiency would facilitate adoption of water-saving irrigation strategies resulting in reduced irrigation expenses. Since rice varieties in the United States have a very narrow genetic base and are highly susceptible to drought and salt stress, this proposal aims to develop rice varieties tolerant to both drought and salinity stresses. This will be accomplished by using the salt and drought tolerant introgression lines developed using well known salinity and drought tolerant donors in various Louisiana adapted rice varietal backgrounds.

Animal Health Component

80%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

10%

Applied

80%

Developmental

10%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
201	1530	1081	80%
201	1530	1080	20%

Knowledge Area
201 - Plant Genome, Genetics, and Genetic Mechanisms;

Subject Of Investigation
1530 - Rice;

Field Of Science
1081 - Breeding; 1080 - Genetics;

Keywords

backcross breeding

rice

salinity

drought

marker-assisted selection

Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of this proposal is to develop climate resilient rice cultivars for Louisiana and other southern rice growing states with emphasis on salinity and drought tolerance.Our specific objectives are:1. Development and evaluation of advanced breeding lines with both seedling and reproductive stage salt tolerance2. Development and evaluation of advanced breeding lines with both salinity and drought tolerance3. Evaluation of advanced abiotic stress tolerant breeding lines for yield and agronomic traits

Project Methods
For the objective 1, the introgression lines (IL) populations of two widely used salt tolerance donors, Pokkali and Nona Bokra in the backgrounds of US cultivars will be evaluated to identify ILs with enhanced reproductive stage salt tolerance, which will be then crossed the seedling stage salt tolerant ILs to combine salt tolerance at both sensitive stages. Both phenotypic screening and marker-assisted selection will be used. The seedling stage salinity screening procedure developed at the International Rice Research Institute will be used. Besides following the modified standard evaluation scoring (SES), observations will be recorded on survival days of seedlings, seedling height, shoot and root fresh weight, shoot and root dry weight, the concentration of Na+ and K+ in the shoot and root, and Na+/K+ ratio. For reproductive stage salt tolerance evaluation, the procedure of Mohammadi et al. (2013) will be used with modification. Data will be recorded on the following traits: days to 50% flowering, plant height, panicle length, seed sterility, thousand grain weight, grain yield, Na and K ion concentration in shoot, and Na/K ratio. The ILs with enhanced reproductive stage salt tolerance and absence of undesirable agronomic traits will be identified and amount introgressed donor segments will be determined from the graphical genotype. For objective 2, the IL population of N22 in Cocodrie background will be evaluated for drought tolerance in both greenhouse and field conditions. In greenhouse experiment, methodology of Bhattarai and Subudhi (2018b) will be followed. Measurements will be taken on morphological and yield parameters such as days to flowering, plant height, leaf rolling score, dry matter content, grain yield per plant, yield index, and harvest index in each replication. Root length, dry root mass, and root shoot ratio will be measured under both stress and control environment following protocol described in Bhattarai and Subudhi (2018a). Standard statistical analysis will be carried out. Genotyping of the ILs will be done using SSR or GBS based SNP markers and mapping of QTLs for the above traits will be done using inclusive composite interval mapping (ICIM) software. The amount of introgressed donor segments will be determined using CSSL finder and the ILs with both desirable agronomic traits and drought tolerance traits will be identified. The advanced breeding lines with enhanced salt tolerance identified in objective 1 will be crossed to the ILs with enhanced drought tolerance to develop F3 or F4 segregating populations to select breeding lines with both salt and drought tolerance employing both phenotypic screening and marker-assisted selection. For objective 3, the advanced abiotic stress tolerant breeding lines developed in previous objectives will be evaluated for yield and agronomic traits at the LSU AgCenter Rice Research Station in a replicated field trial. Data will be recorded on days to heading, plant height, vigor, yield, amylose content, gelatinization temperature, grain chalkiness and disease resistance traits. Molecular markers for several desirable traits routinely used in the rice breeding program at the Rice Research Station genotyping lab will be used for evaluation. The introgression lines will be compared with the recurrent parents for yield and other agronomic traits. The high yielding promising breeding lines will be further purified by selecting plants with uniformity for seed multiplication and inclusion in preliminary yield trials and in breeding program at the Rice Research station.

Progress 12/11/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Rice producers, plant breeders, geneticists, pathologists and other researchers working with rice and abiotic stresses. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provided opportunities for training and professional development for two graduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Research progress made in this project was presented at the The 38th Rice Technical Working Group Meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, AL, Feb 24-27, 2020. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to evaluate an introgression line population for drought tolerance and make crosses to combine drought and salt tolerance in next year.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Accomplishments during the reporting period are as follows. The introgression lines (ILs) of salt tolerant donor 'Nona Bokra' in the background of 'Jupiter' and 'Cheniere' were evaluated for salt tolerance at the reproductive stage. Salt stress (8dSm-1) was imposed when the plants entered advance booting stage. The salt tolerant donor showed better performance compared to both high yielding varieties in terms of Na/K ratio, spikelet sterility, panicle length, and grain weight per panicle. The range of variation was wide for these traits in both populations. In both populations, several ILs with superior salt tolerance at the reproductive stage were identified; the ILs 115, 415, 428, 499 in Jupiter background and the ILs 1319, 1427 in Cheniere background showed low spikelet sterility and NaK ratio but these were not among the best lines for seedling stage salt tolerance. Only one seedling stage salt tolerant IL100 in the Jupiter background had a moderate level of salt tolerance at reproductive stage. An interesting finding is that despite high NaK ratio, some lines showed low spikelet fertility and high grain yield per plant. This investigation suggests that salt tolerance at both stages is controlled by different sets of genes and therefore pyramiding approach will be required to develop rice lines tolerant to salt stress at both seedling and reproductive stages.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bhattarai U, Subudhi PK (2019) Genetic diversity, population structure, and marker-trait association for drought tolerance in USA rice germplasm. Plants 8:530; doi:10.3390/plants8120530
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: De Leon TB, Pruthi R, Jampala B, Subudhi PK (2020) Genetic determinants for agronomic traits localized on a GBS-SNP linkage map from a japonica x indica cross in rice (Oryza sativa). Plant Gene https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plgene.2020.100249
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Subudhi PK, Garcia R, Coronejo S, De Leon T (2020) A novel mutation of the NARROW LEAF 1 gene adversely affects plant architecture in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Intl J Mol Sci 21(21):8106.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Islam S, Coronejo S, Subudhi PK (2020) Whole genome sequencing reveals uniqueness of black hulled and straw hulled weedy rice genomes. Theor Appl Genet https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-020-03611-2
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chapagain S, Singh L, Subudhi PK (2020) Novel breeding approaches for developing climate-resilient rice. In: Quantitative Genetics, Genomics and Plant Breeding (Second edition), M.S. Kang (Ed.) Publisher CAB International, Nosworthy Way, Wallingford OX10 8DE, United Kingdom. PP 259-275.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Subudhi PK, Famoso A, Chapagain S, Garcia R, Coronejo S, Concepcion J, Singh L, De Leon T, Puram VRR, Ontoy J (2020) Progress in development of salt tolerant rice varieties. The 38th Rice Technical Working Group Meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, AL, Feb 24-27, 2020 (Oral).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Singh L, Bhattarai U, Chapagain, Subudhi PK (2020) Mapping quantitative trait loci for alkalinity stress tolerance in rice. The 38th Rice Technical Working Group Meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, AL, Feb 24-27, 2020 (Oral).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chapagain S, Garcia R, Coronejo S, Concepcion J, Singh L, Pruthi R, Famoso A, Subudhi PK (2020) Characterization and identification of salt tolerant breeding lines from several mini MAGIC populations in rice. The 38th Rice Technical Working Group Meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, AL, Feb 24-27, 2020 (Poster).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chapagain S, Subudhi PK (2020) Screening and evaluation of multi-parental rice genotypes for seedling stage salinity tolerance. 2nd NAPA Biennial International Scientific Conference: Sept 25-28, 2020 (Virtual), Atlanta, GA 30344, USA (Oral).
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Chapagain S, Singh L, Garcia R, Pruthi R, Concepcion J, Coronejo S, Subudhi PK (2020) Molecular breeding for improving salinity tolerance in rice: Recent progress and future prospects. In: Molecular breeding for Rice Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Nutritional Quality, Hossain MA, Hassan L, Ifterkharuddaula KM, Jumar A, and Henry R (Eds). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.