In Vitro Identification of Cultivar Responses to Rice Sheath Blight Pathogen Rhizoctonia solani

The goal of this project is to identify critical genes for the control of sheath blight disease. To this end, an in vitro method to examine interactions of rice with the rice sheath blight pathogen Rhizocotnia solani was developed. The initial analysis of R. solani isolates from Arkansas rice fields revealed three classes of most virulent, mod- erately virulent, and weakly virulent isolates. Differential responses of rice cultivar leaves toward these pathogen isolates were detected using a novel detached-leaf method. Characterized R. solani isolates are being used to identify differentially ex- pressed genes.